Titus 2 Men And Women

Many times in the Bible God tells us people slept…even Jesus. God even tells us that the rest of body He gives to His children whom He loves is sweet.

Proverbs 3:24 When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.

Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

We have all been taught that sleep is important to our health but in talking with people I believe most people do not understand just how important it is. 

Every article I read agreed there is no scientific explanation for why we need to sleep, but all agreed it is known our bodies only heal when we sleep. The sleep that heals is called Delta sleep and our bodies heal and repair in this stage of sleep. Sometimes during illness our body may fall immediately into Delta sleep because infection fighting antibodies are produced in greater numbers in this sleep stage.

During Delta sleep many neurotransmitters are restored. Neurotransmitters are the vehicles that carry information back and forth between your body and mind. These "information superhighways" enable us to repeat appropriate and predictable actions---informing muscles constantly about what they are doing so their actions can be modified. Two of the conditions most frequently misdiagnosed because of lack of sleep are mentioned in the next paragraph.

Researchers at the University of Toronto Center for Sleep and Chronobiology are uncovering important insights about how sleep heals. Dr. Harvey Moldofsky and his colleagues studied the natural rhythm of sleep by interrupting the sleep of a group of medical students. Over several nights, each time the students entered a deep-sleep phase, called the Delta phase, the researchers would interfere. After a few nights of these disruptions, the students developed the classic symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. 

Dr. Moldofsky conducted another study on how the immune system reacts to sleep deprivation. Researchers examined natural killer cells---a component of the immune system that attacks bacteria, viruses and tumors. Depriving healthy men of four hours of sleep for one night caused the activity of the natural killer cells to decrease by more than one-fourth the next day.

Are Students Sleep Deprived?
Education World recently talked with two experts about the effects of sleep deprivation on elementary school students.

Studies show that 85% of children in kindergarten through fourth grade are not meeting their nightly sleep requirements says James B. Maas professor at Cornell University and the author of two books about sleep:

Dr. Carl Hunt, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, a component of the National Institutes of Health, agrees. "We know from talking with teachers that children are sleepy in the classroom and that this is a significant problem," he told Education World.

Both Hunt and Maas said that elementary school children require at least nine hours of sleep a night to be well rested, and some need even more. Both experts agreed that families are not going to be as early as they need to. Parents who are staying up late to get everything done, often keep their children up too late as well.
Signs that a child is sleep-deprived:

Maas and Hunt both say that children and adults react differently to a lack of sleep. Adults generally yawn and feel sleepy all day. Like adults, children are hard to wake up in the morning and show sleepiness in the morning. Unlike adults, children become more active---"wired", and less able to concentrate later in the day. Because they become more "wired" as the day progresses children often have trouble falling asleep and parents may not realize that their children are not getting enough sleep.

The Better Sleep Council says children need at least nine hours of sleep each night. To help insure that your children get enough sleep they recommend avoiding caffeine close to bedtime, keeping the room dark, the mattress comfortable, and avoid over-scheduling your children during the day. 

In the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" Marc Weissbluth writes:
"Sleep deficiency in childhood may harm neurological development, and the problems might not show up until later. I think it is possible that unhealthy sleep habits contribute to school related problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity. Disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities. I also suspect that chronically tired children become chronically tired adults who suffer in ways we can’t measure: less resiliency, less ability to cope with life’s stress, less curiosity, less empathy, less playfulness. The message here is simple: Sleep is a powerful modifier of behavior, performance, and personality."Sleep deprived teens:
Mary Carskadon, a professor and sleep specialist at Brown Medical School says, Over and over, the link between depression and insufficient sleep in adolescents pops up in research. She says what bothers her is teenagers actually know how much sleep they need. They just don’t get any support to figure out how to get it.

She said modern society scorns sleep as a waste of time; a burden that gets in the way of both work and play. 

She says at an early age, children are taught that staying up late is a reward. For teenagers, bedtime becomes an issue of asserting their independence. Educating children and families about sleep: 

Forty-seven percent of the American population thinks the brain shuts down in sleep. But in sleep the brain is highly active. Dr. Carl Hunt says, "Parents, teachers, and children need to recognize that good sleep habits are just as important to overall health as diet and exercise. A chronic lack of adequate sleep can exacerbate a tendency toward diabetes and being overweight, two growing health concerns in the United States. We must learn to value sleep. Sleep is essential; it is not a luxury." He also noted children not getting enough sleep are more accident prone.

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