Sleeping Beauty

I must confess:  I did not go to Kid Koala as planned last night.

Instead, for the first time in months, I went to bed before midnight.

At dinner last night, I got a a serious lecture from Mama LumDimSum about the long-term consequences of my nightlife lifestyle.

According to her, every body has its own ticking clock and between the hours of midnight and 4am are the body’s most precious hours of sleep…the exact hours when my brain is most alert and functional and I feel I am most productive at work.

It may sound odd to you, but I am incredibly on-point at night. During the day, my phone is non-stop ringing, e-mails are constantly incoming, and I’m always running off to the next meeting.  And in the evenings (precisely between the hours of midnight and 4am), when everyone else is sleeping, when all the distractions finally stop, I can begin to write.  Only in the wee hours can I concentrate and find the time to get work done, so that I can have the peace of mind to get my beauty sleep.

And I’ve never been a morning person.  Even in high school when I was waking up for zero period at 6am, I was pretty much a walking zombie.  So to me, working nightlife is ideal.  I get to go out, I get to party, I get my work done quickly and efficiently, and most of all, I get to sleep in.

But alas, as the old proverb goes, “the early bird catcheth the worm.” But what if I caught the worm before the early bird even rises?  Does that count?

According to Mama LumDimSum, she’s more concerned with my health and the long-term effects my lifestyle will be on my skin, my heart, my body.

So I did a little research and found that getting enough sleep is obviously important, but so is when you sleep.

Quote of the Day:

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” – Ben Franklin

Mr. Franklin believed we were meant to get up with the light of dawn and to go to sleep at nightfall, our hormone levels adjusting to the rise and fall of daylight around us.  Now, in our modern world we can fool our hormonal system with artificial light, which has a big impact on our health.

We cannot change our genetics, but there is much that is within our control that can have an impact on whether we are healthy or whether we suffer with pain and disease.  Considering my job, it’s impossible for me to go to bed early every night but I wanted to share this message with you in an effort to look after our own health more, something which we should never take for granted.

I believe we should do what we can do to make ourselves as healthy as possible…starting with our beauty sleep.