BETTER AVOID SLEEP DEPRIVATION

                                                                                 - By Milan K Sinha

Each night when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning when I wake up, I am reborn -- Mahatma Gandhi

       The age old saying of "Early to Bed & Early to Rise Makes a Man, Healthy, Wealthy & Wise"  is not considered worth practising by many. The reasons may also be many, but the ultimate sufferer in the whole process of this so-called modern life style is our greatest tranquilizer: Sleep. Undoubtedly, 24x7 our life is shaped in consonance with mother earth's movement round the Energy God, Sun. Morning to noon to evening to finally night, our daily routine is positioned accordingly. But with the changing world and with the entry of economic liberalisation  in our country too, the natural character of our daily routine underwent changes for the worse, particularly for our urban population. 

I hope,revisiting & enjoying a few lines from the hearts of our great thinkers would be interesting & enlightening at this point.

• A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. -- Irish Proverb
• "Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care.The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath.Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,Chief nourisher in life's feast." -- William Shakespeare in Macbeth
• Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. -- William Blake
• Sleep is the best meditation. -- Dalai Lama, Nobel Prize Winner 
• Leisure time is that five or six hours when you sleep at night. -- George Allen
• Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me.-- Steve Jobs
• Not being able to sleep is terrible.You have the misery of having partied all night... without the satisfaction. -- Lynn Johnston
• The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to. -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
• It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it. -- John Steinbeck

           Doctors opine that changing the natural course of life at will  affects not only our health but also the health of our family since it has multi-dimensional impact on our life. Sleep deprivation is one  such casualty of today's fast life which has great negative physiological and neurobehavioral consequences. 

              Several medical research findings too have proved beyond any doubt that much of our body's regeneration processes take place during those sleeping hours. So, it is very incorrect to think (and worse even to practise) that night sleep is a luxury and not a necessity.

                Will meet again with Open Mind. All the Best.