"S" is for Sleep...

Since I've already gone out on a limb with this whole New Year's resolution thing, I might as well confess another one: In 2006, I'm determined to change my sleep habits.The nightowl thing has been my preferred lifestyle for decades. I liked the quiet in the house when everyone else was asleep. I thought I could get soooo much done then. But my definitely-not-spring-chicken-body has gradually gotten quite unhappy with it. And I'm thinking there's probably something to that whole "early to bed, early to rise" thing.

But here's the rub: I've been attempting to improve my behavior for months now, but have gotten caught in a vortex. No longer believing I can afford the late, late nights, I sometimes go to bed on time, but often do not, leaving me with a very erratic schedule and no routine whatsoever. I miss several hours' sleep one or two nights in a row, then try to "catch up" the following night. It's at this point that my body starts to complain: difficulty concentrating, falling asleep at odd (and inappropriate) times, barely articulate, dull complexion, etc.

The power of my will to comply with the predetermined bedtime has proven quite impotent in the face of an apparently powerful emotional attachment to the famliar and ingrained habits. It doesn't seem to matter how many positive benefits I "know"; I "do" otherwise.

So I figure I'll need to up the ante on this one. A current Christianity Today article on sleep by Lauren F. Winner has given me the impetus I needed. An excerpt from her article:

"Sleep specialists are virtually unanimous on this: With some notable exceptions who seem wired to operate on a different schedule (Thomas Edison is a famous example), we human beings cannot lose sleep without decreasing our attention span, our response time, our acuity. I may have been awake for 90 extra minutes [the author cut short her night's sleep], but I was less wakeful all day long...

"...To push ourselves to go without sleep is, in some sense, to deny our embodiment, to deny our fragile incarnations—and perhaps to deny the magnanimous poverty and self-emptying that went into his Incarnation. French poet Charles Peguy makes the point well:

I don't like the man who doesn't sleep, says God.
Sleep is the friend of man,
Sleep is the friend of God.
Sleep is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have created.
And I myself rested on the seventh day.
But they tell me that there are men
Who work well and sleep badly.
Who don't sleep.
What a lack of confidence in me.

"Peguy's words have perhaps never been more fitting: to sleep, long and soundly, is to place our trust not in our own strength and hard work, but in Him without whom we labor in vain."

So I've decided to put a theological lens on my sleep issue. In 2006, I will offer my body the rest and sleep it needs, consistently and regularly, as a declaration of my "created" status -- a being who requires the full eight hours; as a declaration that I have the power to set my own priorities and leave some "important things" undone rather than sacrifice sleep; as a declaration that He will provide my genuine needs quite apart from any frantic attempts on my part to secure my own well-being.

I tried making this change for my own benefit before, and it didn't work. Then I decided that I ought to do it for my husband and family, and that didn't work. This time, I'm going to do it as an act of deference to the Lord of Life who Himself rested. I think this time it could work.

Good night.