Recently my life has seen me uncover truths that I had no idea were impacting my quality of life not only in the present, but also in the future. It has been a deep dive into many aspects of life, wellness, spirituality and my own personal psychology.
I have found myself interested in areas of life that simply didn’t take up much of my headspace. So I have to say that this recent season of life certainly has been quite profound and will change my life.
Strange title I know for a Christian Today article. Aren’t we supposed to be children of the light rather than the darkness? Well to tell you the truth it's just one of those titles to catch your attention to the main topic of this article. What is the pursuit of darkness and what lessons could come out of such a piece? Here is the surprise: this is all about the topic of sleep and why we need more of it in our lives.
I thought I was different and I was wrong
My personal story regarding this topic is centered around my so called bravado or super spirituality.For a long time I put myself in the category of not needing more than 4-6 hours sleep a night.
I would often say to people around me that I am just built differently from others, requiring less sleep.
One reason to justify such a claim was just that I wanted to watch a whole lot of sports on the other side of the world and that meant late nights in front of a screen. Or the other reason being that God wants me to have less sleep so I create for him and with Him.
My most creative hours
Often in my past as a creative writer and artist I would be woken in the early hours of the morning, say 3am, and I would be so awake that I just had to get in the studio to splash some paint around.
I have created many of my pieces in these strange hours. To tell you the truth, I love this time in the early morning. It's a time of no distraction, quietness, no phones buzzing away and a great time to have an undivided focus.
But recently I came to realize that if I am waking at 3-4am for creative times with God I certainly must think about how much sleep I am getting before that and while I convinced myself of not needing a lot of sleep, I didn’t realize the impact of that decision.
It's time to change my thoughts on sleep
So what’s changed and how have I adapted to this recent conviction? Part of me was that I love to be prepared for the Father to wake me up for a time with Him. So if I wanted to keep the possibility of this happening in my life I then had to add some more sleep in the night before this awake time of 4am.
As simple as it is, I have set a bedtime that alarms me and tells me to go to bed earlier. I don’t need to watch those midnight matches or events in real time when you can replay, stream and watch them in more normal hours.
I have been practicing this for about 50 days now and have noticed a great impact on my mental and physical well being, and it has enhanced my creative time with the Lord too. I am hearing more clearly and am way more attentive to his voice and instructions.
Here are the statistics
So why is this all so important? I’m young. I will catch up on sleep when I no longer want to be a night owl.
Sleep is one of the key areas that help us to maintain our body and mind for living the full life that God intended for us. We are supposed to do a lot of it in the week – 56-63 hours.
According to Matt Walker, a sleep specialist and probably the most advanced voice on the topic of sleep, most of our health problems, both mentally and physically, come from the fact that we don’t respect the universally agreed 8-9 hours principle.
Here are some stats and facts that certainly had me thinking and saw me change my ways:
● 8 hours are fundamental in all areas (mind, body, soul & strength) to maintain human life to optimum level.
● We sleep in a 4 stage cycle during which we reach REM (Rapid eye movement) sleep, the deepest state of sleep and often coined the “dream sleep” stage. This is my favourite level of sleep because I think of the dream world and how God speaks to us in this state. This REM sleep refreshes us and renews us for the new day ahead.
● On average, we currently sleep for 6.25 hours a day due to our busy schedules and ability to be in a lighted atmosphere longer than those in the past. Thus we lose 25% of this vital sleep over the space of a week and this compounds over the space of our lives.
● Due to the creation of social media, we have trained our brain to not get to our deepest state of sleep. In fact, we are not asleep a lot of the time despite having our eyes shut.
● This kind of level of sleep (6hrs) has been scientifically proven to be linked to early stage Alzheimer’s and dementia.
● Lack of sleep is linked to decay of our body and mind, including heart disease, cancer, depression and anxiety.
● The dreaded ‘micro sleep’ is the leading cause of deaths in car accidents at a staggering 30% in Australia, higher than alcohol and speeding.
Information and Statistics from Peter Attia Podcast interview with Matt Walker called ‘the drive’ and Matt Walkers best selling book ‘Why we sleep’
The pursuit of darkness (sleep) and the WORD
So, the pursuit of darkness is vital for us in this life, and we really need to pay attention so that we don’t sacrifice our shut eye time. These scriptures emphasize God's gift of sleep to us:
In peace I will lie down and sleep,for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe. Psalm chapter 4 verse 8
You can go to bed without fear;you will lie down and sleep soundly. Proverbs chapter 3 verse 24
He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night,when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds. Job chapter 33 verse 15
Check out my youtube recording about this topic for more info and reasons as to why the pursuit of darkness is a good thing: We need to sleep more.....