The
Director of Lloyd’s bank admitted to having a health problem due sleep
deprivation and overwork.
Kim
Jong-un, President and Military commander of North Korea, sleeps three hours a
day and fasts often.
Horta
Osório recognized his situation as a serious one, while Jong-un is believed to
be a genius.
In London,
it was said that sleep deprivation would reach over 50% of the population. What
about in Portugal? There are alarming indicators: 50% of the young adults and
teenagers have excessive somnolence. I daily attend patients with sleep
deprivation and/or overwork.
They are
from all ages, both sexes and all social classes. They are those that rule and
those that are ruled. They are executives, officials, salaried and independent
workers, merchants and sellers.
They are
those that wish to rise in life, and those that are already there. They are
rich, poor and remedied. They are those that work in shifts, and those that do
not have office hours. They are mothers and fathers, single mothers with
dependent children, fathers with two jobs in order to provide for their family.
They are those that make it happen in order to pay their debts and those that
demand payments. They are those that exercise in powerful positions and those
that have little or no power at all. They are many…
At first
you work because you have to. You work all night long, going to bed late and
getting up early. You hear praises “Well done!” or “What energy!” The good results
are obvious: on time replies, the e-mail does not wait, the cellphones always
on. Money comes in, or will come in. Success knocks at the door, or will knock
at the door.
But… mistakes
first start to emerge, fleeting lapses, that word which you cannot remember,
that meeting which you forget, the professional error…
Then comes
the irritability, then you are on the edge. Then it’s the untimely yawning and
the neglect. Memory fades away.
At first,
as soon as you get to bed you sleep right away. But latter, you want to sleep
and you cannot. Neither by day nor by night. Gaping eyes, head spinning.
Sleepless nights, even while on vacations.
Broken
sleep, the lost blessing!
Despair,
depression, broken memory, sluggish reasoning, bad humor, and “burned out”.
It happens
to the best, to those who are best prepared, to the smartest. Genius don’t get
little sleep. Some, like Einstein, were considered to be good sleepers. Sleep
has guaranteed survival for millions of years. The foremost beneficiary is the
brain. Sleep consolidates memory, learning and abstract knowledge, it helps in
problem resolution, stimulates creativity and stabilizes emotions.
In order to
think and be well, one must sleep!
The body is
the other beneficiary. To sleep too much or too little increases the risk of
diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, cancer, accidents and
reduces life expectancy.
In order to
be healthy, one must sleep!
Rules and
regularity is required in sleeping, in eating, in resting and in exercising.
Beware! Illness results from mistakes in the natural, common sense, rules!
Limits are
needed in work, in credit, in expenses, in pleasure, in pain, in everything.
We are not
slaves. We need breaks along the day.
We are not
as gladiators; instruments to be thrown away when are met with incapacity.
Where did
we achieve with so much work, so much unrest, and so much credit, so much
everything?
To a
country in crisis, a sick society, with sad people and with no future in sight.
Where will
Kim Jung-un go, without any control in his warfare strategies, daring and
impulsive? What untold suffering will he bring to his people? How much pain,
sadness, devastation will spread throughout that region?
Is this the
work of a genius brain or rather the end result of a brain suffering from
serious decision making issues and impulsive-aggressive tendencies, aggravated
by sleep deprivation?
God rested on the seventh day, and we are
certainly no gods.
Professor Teresa Paiva
Lisbon, April 5th 2013
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