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September 2021

There are a lot of articles written about the science of sleep, but there is a lot of spiritual aspects as well that I find to be generally not discussed.

We have trained our bodies into a very unrestful form of sleep, that just get’s us enough but without really being rested.  This typically involves a lot of stimulation.

When we sleep, we are de-stimulating our minds, hears, and bodies, and as such it is the opposite of what the entire culture has us in - so we use that same method and medicate ourselves to sleep.  If we want to sleep the way we were designed, we must slow to below the posted speed minimums in society and re-identify the speed of our Maker

The following items are a little painful at first, but not complex nor a secret.  Getting a good night’s sleep is not complicated, much like diets, exercise, and most other things in life, it  comes down to one thing: How much do you actually want good sleep?  Are you sick and tired of medicating and rolling you way to sleep, or are you just going to keep doing it because its comfortable and you know it?

“Good sleep, like many things, is about discipline, not about secret formulas, medication, or efforts in the moment.  The only question is whether you are willing to do the work”

All of the following I have found time and time agin to be respectively guaranteed  inhibitors/benefactors to good sleep.  Additionally, there are benefits (and consequences) that are obtained in patterns of discipline daily, weekly, and monthly, and yearly discipline or lack thereof.  

DONT’S

  • Use your phone (it’s okay to stop reading this article). 
  • Scroll Facetagram-Tok (or any others)
  • Plug in your phone, in another room, on silent/night mode and DON’T touch it until tomorrow.  Leave it in another room while you sleep.  You nor anyone else is that important
    • Side note, Apple has even realized how detrimental phones are to sleep, so they added “night mode” where it intentionally makes it more difficult to use your phone at night - thank you Apple!
  • Watch anything on TV, Movie, YouTube etc.
  • Do anything, or seek any form of entertainment (liking something ≠ rest inducing)
  • Work (whatever you do for work, don’t)
  • Think hard
  • Engage in planning, vision-casting, or anything else that is exciting or makes you nervous
  • Talk to or engage with, for any reason, joy-inhibiting, rest-taking people
  • Drink caffeine or sugar
  • DO anything stimulating/exciting 
  • Hot showers hamper my sleep at times if done right before bed
  • Just go straight to bed, you need to wind down first (and no, none of the aforementioned actually wind you down). To do that…

DO’S

  • Get into a (potentially new) bedtime routine, do the exact or very similar things every night.  It will take some fiddling to find the right combination of the following
  • Brush your teeth (nobody wants to smell that in the morning)
  • Dim the lights, turn them off if you can!
  • Have meaningful conversation with friends that are life-giving.  If you aren’t sure if that person is, they probably aren’t. Also this is not “Facetime” but “face time” face-to-face, in person, keep the distracting inducing, stimulation creating phones away!
  • Literally take time to remember your role - you are created, with limits, God is uncreated and without limits.  God doesn’t need out help, and he did intend for us to sleep.  We are not that important, but stopping is that important to us.  Write it down, out it somewhere and intentionally take time to think about it
  • Read your Bible.  Read some Ecclesiastes if you want an extra sleeping measure of the aforementioned perspective to help you sleep
  • Pray, just talk to God (and it’s okay to fall asleep in the conversation, God may be filling his promise in doing so!)  Sometimes it’s good to pray while…
  • Getting a small notebook and write a letter to God (on paper, not on a digital device) about your day. Explain the highs, lows, and what you are worried about.  Take some time to listen for a response, and sometimes you will (even it the response has nothing initially to do with what you were saying).  Write that down too!
  • Use that same book whenever you have a new idea, or stressful thought, write it down to work on in the morning
  • Read a non-stimulating book, read it on paper.  Some recommendations:
    • A Minute of Margin
    • 24/6
    • Margin
    • Sit, Walk, Stand
    • The Life You’d Always Wanted
  • If applicable, just talk with your spouse about your day
  • Have a campfire, and just watch it
    • If you have the ability and desire, sing to the Lord around the fire
  • Go outside, just gaze at the stars.  Think about their size, how far they are, the size of the universe, and how amazing the God who spoke them all are
    • Snuggle up in a blanket with your spouse in your truck-bed to watch for a little extra time
    • Smell the air, take deep, long breaths
    • Listen to the crickets, their incredible song goes unnoticed until someone tells a bad joke
  • Sit in a rocking chair, just rock and think
  • Open your curtains and let the sun shine in in the morning, it helps you wake up better!
  • When you literally can’t keep your eyes open, go lay down, and see how long you can keep them open for!
  • Oh, and when you wake up in the morning, eat some food, talk to God and read your Bible BEFORE you pick up your phone.  Without fail your phone WILL set the trajectory of your day if you let it.  Let the Bible do that for you!

You likely have heard all of these at some point, and realistically, most people that read this aren’t going to change because of it.  You, dear reader, are not likely to change, but it’s simply because you, if you are honest, are truthfully content.  You know it is bad for you health (mental, physical, and spiritual), wealth, family, and  happiness; but change is hard, and you don’t feel very broken now.  

So what’s the point in writing this? My hope is that at some point, someone may stumble upon this article, who really wants to make a change, to change their legacy, and sleep plays a huge role in that; and to that end, may these small collections of realizations help you to learn, grow, and change your family tree.