D.A. Carson wrote that “Sometimes the godliest thing you can do in the universe is get a good night’s sleep.” I agree. David too reminds us that sleeping in peace is a gift of God (Ps 4:8). And the wisest man ever (besides Jesus!) affirms that God ”grants sleep to those he loves” (Ps 127:2). And so wisdom dictates that sleep is, in fact, a good thing. Which is why it is so distressing that “the World Health Organization (WHO) has now declared a sleep loss epidemic throughout industrialized nations” (Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker, 2017: 4).
Lest someone simply brush off this advice as simply good wisdom but not worth following through on, consider this: God created us as spiritual and physical people. And so taking care of your body is important. In fact, since we are body-spirit composites, then adequate sleep might just constitute a spiritual discipline. Everyone knows, for example, how difficult we find self-control when we lack sleep.
But if even this doesn’t convince you to sleep for at least 7 to 9 hours a night, then perhaps these 9 dangers that follow from lack of adequate sleep will light a fire behind you.
- “Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer” (Walker, 3).
- “Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease” (Walker, 3).
- “Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic” (Walker, 3).
- “Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure” (Walker, 3).
- “Fitting Charlotte Brontë’s prophetic wisdom that ‘a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow,’ sleep disruption further contributes to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality” (Walker, 3).
- “Too little sleep swells concentrations of a hormone that makes you feel hungry while suppressing a companion hormone that otherwise signals food satisfaction. Despite being full, you still want to eat more” (Walker, 3–4).
- If you diet while not getting enough sleep, then much of the weight loss will come from “lean body mass, not fat” (Walker, 4).
- And less sleep, which might be obvious by now, means you will possibly have a shorter “life span” (Walker, 4).
- Drowsy driving accidents “exceed those caused by alcohol and drugs combined” (Walker, 5).
If these nine dangers that come from a lack of adequate sleep do not alarm you, I am not sure what else will. Yet I would like to press the point further. If you want to kill sin in your life, and you find, for example, that you become more susceptible to sexual temptation when you are tired (or when you are awake late at night), then turn Netflix off and go to bed.
You see: we sometimes believe that we will overcome sin by mere will-power. But we cannot. We must rely on God fully and use his means of grace. Which means? Of course, prayer, confession, and community. Yet I would also include sleep, rest, and meditating on Scripture.
Brothers and sisters, we are not gnostics. We are humans made up of body and spirit. Perhaps you have neglected God’s good gift of sleep, and your family, friends, and congregants reap the rewards of your being a grumpy curmudgeon.
Let’s ensure that we taste the good gifts of the Lord, one of which is rest. Turn off the TV at 9:30PM tonight, put your smartphone away, hit the mattress, and sleep for eight hours. Your body will thank you for it.
