February 16, 2015

Editorial

Not getting enough sleep? If so, apparently you’re not alone.

According to the recently aired National Geographic Channel documentary titled “Sleepless in America,” almost everyone in the U.S. is sleep-deprived. And the consequences, it seems, are worse than we might think.

Experts in the film say that chronic sleep deprivation—fewer than seven to eight hours sleep a night—increases risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, mental illness, and possibly even cancer. Sleep-deprived adolescents have lower test scores, and the top cause of high-severity car accidents is fatigue. This is serious stuff—“as important as good nutrition, physical activity, and wearing your seat belt,” according to the documentary. National Transportation Safety Board member Mark Rosekind goes even further in the film when he says that “every aspect of who you are as a human, every capability, is degraded, impaired, when you lose sleep.”

The culprits cited for such lack of sleep in today’s “overstimulated culture” are technology and gadgetry, as well as overwork. And we’re paying a high price.

As Adventists, we too are not immune. Sometimes, it seems, we even feel a sense of “spiritual pride” for chronic overwork and “compete” over who has worked the most extra hours. The schedules of some who are busy doing the Lord’s work—at every level of our church—are daunting. But is working ourselves to exhaustion really what the Lord is asking us to do? At times, in certain situations, maybe it is. But as a lifestyle choice? I’m not so sure.

Being temperate in all things is a biblical mandate. Perhaps it even includes getting enough sleep.

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