Sleep is the Best Meditation.
You know who said "Sleep is the best meditation"? The Dalai Lama. He's a SMART man. This is one of the may invaluable lessons I think we can and should all learn from him.
I could have chosen a lot of topics
for this blog post, but this specific topic has been on my mind a lot because
many of my friends, classmates, and students bring it up. All-nighters. They’re SO STUPID. Your opinion may be vastly different from
mine, so feel free to share it, but this is my blog and I want to express my
opinion on this very important subject as eloquently and convincingly as
possible.
The hours we spend sleeping,
throughout our lives, is supposed to add up to about 1/3 of our time here on
earth. It makes sense that something so
good and so essential to our health is an activity that takes up such a big
chunk of time we are alive. When people
don’t sleep at all, or just not enough in general, it is very difficult for
them to act like their normal selves and especially to succeed in school or
work to their fullest potential. College
students tend to think that all-nighters are fun, funny and a rite of passage
that comes with being in college. I
could not disagree more with that sad
stigma. It makes perfect sense to me
that we need to give our bodies a certain amount of sleep every day, and if we
don’t sleep enough every day, we need to catch up later. When we sleep, we take care of ourselves, and
when we take care of ourselves (and our friends by encouraging them to sleep) we’ll
feel so much better and do so many more things that we have to and want to do.
My friend Emmi mentioned once that her
manager always tell their employees that if they decide they need to pull an
all-nighter, they should at least “Pull a FUN all-nighter.” Basically, if you decided you want to or need
to stay up all night without sleep, you might as well be doing something
enjoyable and worthwhile. Valid reasons
include a philanthropy event (Dance Marathon, St. Jude’s Up til Dawn, Relay for
Life) and just plain fun times (going out with friends, celebrating a birthday
or holiday, going to a concert, taking a roadtrip). I can confidently say that 99% of the people
I know would much rather do any of those things than use their all-nighter time
to study, do homework, or even just to watch Netflix.
Between high school and college, I
think I’ve only ever pulled 3 all-nighters to do schoolwork. Granted, there
have been a solid amount of nights that I had to stay up til 2 or 3, very
rarely even 4, in the morning, to finish a project or paper or study guide. However, it is a proven scientific fact as well as a true statement from personal
experience that staying up all night and getting little to no sleep in order to
finish a task or prepare for something for the upcoming day is unhealthy,
counter-productive, unhealthy, and downright uncomfortable. If you choose to stay up all night without
sleeping, I hope it’s for a good cause or a fun event, a night that will
instill positive, happy memories in your brain as opposed to mushed up facts
and anxious feelings.
Here are 7 awesome (dare I say inspiring) quotes about sleep, representing the 7 nights of the week that you should try to get a healthy amount of sleep.
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