Living the Christian life, takes effort. We don’t glide through it. Life isn’t all roses. There are many thorns attached to those roses. We have an enemy actively seeking to bring us down. This world is corrupt and getting worse everyday.
I’ve discovered something that has helped me tremendously in walking this narrow path, I call, the Christian life. Add this to the file of knowledge for good health. Okay, some of you are going to laugh at me, when you realize what I’m about to share. You’re going to say, “Are you kidding me? That’s your big secret?” Just bear with me, this is life changing stuff, really it is.
I am a former night owl. I always loved staying up past midnight since at least high school. Not sure what that was. In college, I loved staying up all night. If I had a paper, I would often wait to the night before, then stay up all night working on it. Something about staying up all night thrilled me. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush I got, trying to work and get it all done before the deadline. Not sure. But then I was constantly tired. I constantly craved naps and usually took them in the afternoon. When I was working full-time, I usually didn’t get to bed until 11:30pm. Then I would drag through the work day, yawning and wondering what was wrong with me, why was I so tired all the time.
As I neared my forties, I started walking, early in the morning with a friend. I started going to bed at at decent hour, because I needed to get up at 5am, to meet my friend, in time, for our 4.8 mile walk. If I didn’t get into bed by 10pm, it was excruciating, trying to get up the next morning. If I managed to get to bed by 9pm, wow! I felt like a million bucks the next day. More and more, my bedtime became closer to 9pm rather than 10pm. I stopped yawning all the time. I noticed I didn’t have headaches all the time like I used to. I felt cheerier. I began to lose weight. Hmmm. There was something to this going to bed at a decent hour thing.
I did some research on it. I found some major evidence regarding the major benefits of going to bed around 9pm. First of all, one hour of sleep BEFORE midnight is equivalent to four hours after midnight. Whoa! That’s some powerful stuff. I read about weight loss. Our bodies are designed by the Creator to work very well. As we sleep, hopefully, before midnight, our bodies start working to get ready for the next day. It starts storing up reserves of energy, so when you wake up, you can take on the world. However, if you go to bed later, your body starts taking from those reserves that are supposed to be for you, for the next day, and using them now because, well your body needs them in order to stay up late. So when you do get up the next day, your body is short on energy supplies. Your body needs energy, so it begins to crave all the foods that will give you quick energy: carbs and sugar. You spend the whole day trying to play catch up with your energy levels. You are already tired, and then the carbs and sugar you eat, raise your blood sugar, then it comes crashing down a couple of hours later. You feel worse, then before. It becomes a vicious cycle.
My bedtime now if usually 9pm. I rarely have headaches. I rarely get sick. I’m in a better mood. Weight has fallen off of me. I’m cheerful (which my family REALLY appreciates). I cope with stress better. I don’t yawn all the time. I have way more energy then I did. Life is just brighter and greater, now that I’m no longer a chronic night owl.
So there it is! There’s my big secret. Go to bed by 9pm and you’ll start feeling like a million bucks. You will be better equipped to walk this narrow path of the Christian walk. Don’t we all need a little help to get through this life? And trust me, going to bed early is life changing. Or, you can continue going to bed late and look like the goat I posted at the beginning of this blog.
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