The average person spends about a third of their life
sleeping. That’s a lot of time, but it’s time well spent. Sleep is vital for a
healthy life. While we are asleep, our bodies have a chance to restore
themselves, giving our immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems a
well-earned break and time to renew. At the same time, our senses diminish and
our minds enter a state of altered consciousness: We dream. Our sleeping minds
process our waking experiences, improving mood, memory, and cognitive function.
Considering the importance of rest and the endlessly
fascinating nature of dreams, sleep has long been a subject of extensive
research, from ancient philosophers to modern psychologists. Today, the general
consensus is that adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per day —
but that’s certainly not a hard and fast rule. Many successful people have
claimed to get by just fine on four to five hours a night; Thomas Edison was
famously opposed to sleeping, considering it “a heritage from our cave days”
and preferring to sleep for just three or four hours a day.
Edison, however, is certainly in a minority when it comes
to his opinion of sleep. For most of us, sleep is a wonderful break, and we’d
be happy to sleep for longer — especially when the dreaded alarm sounds in the
morning. And we’re not alone. Many famous figures, from Homer to Homer Simpson,
have extolled the virtues of sleep, as the following quotes reveal.
There is a time for many words and there is a
time for sleep. —
Homer
Even a soul submerged in sleep is hard at
work and helps make something of the world.
— Heraclitus
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and
our little life is rounded with a sleep.
— William Shakespeare
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, beloved from
pole to pole.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sleep! Life's nurse, sent from heaven to
create us anew day by day. —
Charles Reade, novelist
That we are not much sicker and much madder
than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural
graces, sleep. — Aldous
Huxley
It is a common experience that a problem
difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked
on it. — John Steinbeck
The amount of sleep required by the average
person is five minutes more. —
Wilson Mizner, playwright
When action grows unprofitable, gather
information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
— Ursula K. Le Guin
Sleep is the Swiss Army knife of health. When
sleep is deficient, there is sickness and disease. And when sleep is abundant,
there is vitality and health.
— Matthew Walker, neuroscientist
In the end, winning is sleeping better. — Jodie Foster
In ancient cultures, sleep was actually seen
as a gateway to another world. There's something sacred in all of us that we
need to protect, and sleep is a way to connect with it, nourish it, and make it
more present in our lives.
— Arianna Huffington
Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if
you ignore it.
— Gillian Flynn, author
Having peace, happiness, and healthiness is
my definition of beauty. And you can't have any of that without sleep. — Beyoncé
Sleep is a regenerative process where we heal
and where our neurons build strong connections. It’s like a fountain of youth
that we dive in to every night.
— Mikhail Varshavski,
aka Dr. Mike
I don't wanna sleep like a guinea pig, I
wanna sleep like a bear! —
Homer Simpson
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