The night has come when every man must retire to his place of rest; don't we all need sleep... we wouldn't survive a week without it as it's our body's recharge mechanism; a recharge mechanism which I have been defying and cheating for days and weeks and months thus resulting in my recurring hypertension. They say you can't cheat nature but I've pushed myself to a point where nature has begun to hate me thus gathering itself in full form and hitting me back with a dose my body can't take..therefore bringing about stress and sickness, and all things not good for the human body. What if nature could be cheated, what if I didn't need to sleep anymore and still retained sound health? Story for another day....
I constantly blame myself for being the cause of my hypertension as I have developed a habit of not sleeping early for years but it isn't my fault when viewed from a technical perspective as my brain is always full of activities during the day that the sleep hardly even comes thus leading to insomnia at some point. I remember that about 6 to 7 years back I used to have insomnia, the deserved sleep just wouldn't come through irrespective of how hard I try to force it; imagine closing your eyes for a long time only to open it later and realise it has been two hours since you closed your eyes and the sleep simply didn't make any attempt to force its way in. Yes, you read it right; I sometimes close my eyes for two hours straight and wouldn't even feel a slight form of dizziness or something close to sleep; this may seem impossible but you could ask other peeps with insomnia and they'd share an even worse experience.. well, this was about 6 years ago and it's past now but I've gotten used to not sleeping that even after the insomnia episodes left, I still find it difficult to sleep early hence my recurring hypertension. Contrary to that most people think, hypertension is not necessarily caused by thinking or having too many things on your mind; a simple lack of sleep for days, weeks, and months is enough is trigger this incurable disease... surprisingly the world health organisation worked too hard to create a cure for covid-19 but didn't do the same for people suffering from hypertension, turns out their priorities are somewhat misplaced out of a false sense of self righteousness.
Been thinking a lot about being a control freak; what if I had a way of cheating nature such that I no longer needed to sleep, imagine me simply needing to recharge a special battery which I connect to my brain cells to stop my brain from realising I haven't slept for days and months. Imagine all I needed was a machine with infinite supply of tachyons which recharged my brain cells with enough anount of energy daily that sleep would no longer he needed and would become totally obsolete. I sometimes imagine that there was no such thing as sleep and humans completely forgot about the fact that something like that used to exist because technology has paved way for humans to defy nature and sleep is now something we tell to our grandchildren as moon lighting stories because events have totally overtaken the need for it. All imaginations but I think we're getting there.
What is my point exactly? It's quite simple; lack of sleep mostly contributes to my constantly being sick and it's simply inevitable for me as I've gotten used to being awake for hours, plus sleep is no longer something I enjoy as 24 hours is not enough to achieve all I need to. If only sleep could be replaced with another recharge mechanism, if only....then perhaps the world would be a happier place.. no... I mean the world will be a less happier place filled with smartphone zombies here and there living their lives with the aim of bucking the status quo without having to give it a rest, thus losing what allows them to be called humans...."sleep".
All my jargon so far comes down to these eight words which is "Sleep is necessary and it can't be replaced"......
Sleep when you can or be a smartphone zombie.
Toddles!
Lead image from unsplash
When you are awake you wear down body and mind, you accumulate hundreds of small injuries every day - during sleep all healing, reparation and growth take place. It goes without saying, that too little sleep is a catastrophe for one's long term health.