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Sleep News Blog

Prescription Sleep Medicine

Health and the Need For Adequate Rest

Posted by sleepyguy in Prescription Sleep Medicine, Sleep Disorder on April 17th, 2009

Recently I was given a CD promoting a new health product. The doctor promoting the product reinforced the necessity of getting a solid eight hours of sleep daily. He was really saying everyone needed a good quality eight hours restful sleep every day.

The bottom line was if we didn’t get this amount of good quality rest our health would not be optimal. Our body would not be able to regenerate and rebuild itself as is required.

I am not sure about you, but in this day and age I don’t know of too many people who get this kind of rest. We either get eight hours of fitful sleep, or we get four hours of some kind of sleep. So the question becomes what can or should we do? As physical beings we have one body and only one body. Cloning is not an option so we can’t arbitrarily pick up spare parts as needed.

Our fast-paced, harried lifestyle with dual-income plus families, two cars in the drive way, along with one or more of the following toys: motorcycle(s), RV(s), speed boat(s), etc. is literally limiting our healthy life span. Are all these toys really worth the trade offs we make with our health?

What good is making all the money if you just end up spending it later to get your health back? (That is if you can get it back). Do we really think about what we are doing to our bodies, and our lives, or do we delude ourselves that somehow it won’t affect us?

Now I’m an electrical engineer, I’ve had more semesters of math than I can count. I can tell you that 1 + 1 does indeed equal 2. An attorney once told me that 1 + 1 equaled whatever he wanted it to. Personally I think if that’s the way you treat your health you shouldn’t be surprised when you get to spend a lot of quality time with your doctor.

Life is about choices. We make them every day. Some are big decisions, some are not. I am talking about the ones that we make almost unconsciously. Should I order the salad, or should I get a large order of fries. I really don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out what is better for our body.

So why do we do the things we do as opposed to the things we know we should do? That is the $64,000 question and the only one who can answer that is you. So what is your body telling you? And are you listening or not?