Try a “stop day” for your get-up-and-go

“I’m tired,” my son, Dave, told me.

He was driving back from Cincinnati again after another long day.

“You’re too young to get tired,” I responded.

I’m sure he found about as much comfort in my words as I did when I, at about his age, told my dad I was tired.

“Oh well,” Dad nonchalantly said, “you’re young, you’ll get over it.”

But I wouldn't get over it simply because I was young and neither will Dave.

Dad didn't know about what some scientists call “sleep debt.” Sleep debt is the difference between the amount of sleep you should be getting and the amount you are actually getting. According to sleep studies, our bodies keep something like an internal bank account of the sleep we need and the sleep we get. Getting overdrawn on our account can result in health issues.

When I talked to Dad way back when, I was in graduate school, working a couple of part time jobs and accumulating some serious sleep debt. Let’s suppose I was getting 2 hours less sleep a night than I needed on any given week. Even though I may have slept an extra four hours on the weekend, I would still have had a sleep debt of about 6 hours.

That’s’ been years ago. There is no telling what my sleep debt is now. I would have to pull a Rip Van Winkle, find my own Sleepy Hollow, and snooze a couple of decades to catch up on my sleep.

I may as well declare sleep bankruptcy.

We are a sleep deprived nation. You likely hear those words, “I’m tired,” from people several times each week. Maybe you hear yourself saying them more frequently than that.

Today, about 20% of Americans report that they get less than 6 hours of sleep on the average, and the number of Americans who report that they get 8 hours of sleep has decreased.

And it’s not just adults. Teenagers, who need about 8-10 hours of sleep each night to function at optimum level, aren't getting enough sleep. One study found that only 15% are sleeping 8.5 hours on school nights.  Maybe they’re working off their sleep debt on weekends, but I doubt it.

Even children are getting on average 1.5 to 2 hours less than the recommended amount of sleep, according to a Sleep in America poll.

Much of the problem is the constant access to electronic devices, the use of which before bedtime, has been found to inhibit sleep.

We constantly want to be aware of what’s going on.

Most of my life I've been one of those who feared missing something.

Whenever my parents had a night out, my babysitter, Mrs. Francis, would try and get me to sleep. She would lie down, pretending to sleep. Certain that I had fallen asleep, she would ever so slowly put her feet on the floor--- anxious, I’m sure, to watch Johnny Carson or the Twilight Zone--- and at that moment I would pop up and ask, “Where ya going?”

Shaking her head in defeat, she would lie back down and start the process over. 

I didn't want to miss a thing and secretly wanted to watch whatever she was going to watch on TV.

The real deep down problem is that we don’t want to miss anything, we want to take it all in, 24/7, so we've created a 24/7 culture. We go, go, go, and fool ourselves into believing that constantly going and doing are virtuous and empowering. We’re like Frank Underwood, (Kevin Spacey, House of Cards): “I always loathed the necessity of sleep. Like death, it puts even the most powerful of men on their backs.”

Dr. Matthew Sleeth, a former emergency room physician, has addressed this issue in his book, 24/6: A Prescription for a Healthier, Happier Life.

“We go 24/7 now, and I think it's having health consequences. I think more and more, there's a consensus that it leads to depression and anxiety,” Sleeth said in an interview on CNN.

Sleeth takes us back to fourth commandment, the one in the Hebrew Bible that says we should “remember the Sabbath.” Noting that “Sabbath” means “to cease” from our labors, Sleuth recommends a “stop day,” a day when we do not work. He doesn't define what “labor” is for each person, but each of us should figure out what work is for us and not do that one day out of the week, he says.

Such a day when observed regularly could slow us down, refresh our spirit, and I would venture to say, increase our sleep patterns in a positive way, for we would be more in touch with ourselves, and others, and maybe even God.

We won’t mind missing some things, knowing that our “stop day,” enables us to experience life more fully than before.

It seemed to work for David, King of Israel, who regularly observed the Sabbath rest and said, “I lie down and sleep; I woke again, because the Lord sustains me” (Psalm 3:5).

Now that’s true rest.

I’m going to try it tonight.