I'm Only Sleeping

In human history, lack of sleep is a relatively recent problem. Sure, there were the occasional sleepless night when children were born, hunting season was at its peak or an emergency occurred. Historically speaking, humans, and the balance of the animal world, have had enough sleep.

Our ancestors weren’t woken up by cell phones in the middle of the night, worrying about the mortgage or trying to sift through the information overload from the previous day. Our bodies use sleep to recover from the day of stress they were subjected to, recharging for the day ahead.

This week was one of those weeks. Multiple late night phone calls from work coupled with being down a person has resulted in too much to think about and not enough time to do it in.

After one day of sleep loss, animals compensate by increasing the intensity of sleep; in the short term, we try to balance things out. After a few days of sleep loss, our bodies no longer try to compensate for lost time; we don't sleep any more deeply or any longer than we would under normal conditions.

Things will eventually balance out, of that I am sure. Until then, I dream of sleeping, perchance to dream...