SECRETS OF SLEEP

                        SECRETS OF SLEEP



The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.



Today after doing a 2 week research by referring journals, research papers and documentaries on web, Nitin will unravel mysteries of the most beautiful experience in life SLEEP through his CC #7 titled ‘SECRETS OF SLEEP’

 We spend about one-third of our lives asleep.


Sleep is one of the most pleasurable and mysterious areas of our lives. It is as necessary as breathing and as nourishing as eating, yet few people realize how important sleep is!



In our overcrowded lives, sleep has become a modern obsession, the thing we crave more than anything else. The alarm clock is an often-used fixture in an overwhelming majority of homes of the modern world. By using the electric lighting, alarm clocks, sleeping pills, and shift-work, we have wreaked havoc on the process of sleep.


Cutting down on sleep does not make people die (at least not immediately). It does make them feel miserable but the ease with which we recover by getting just one good night of sleep seems to make sleep look cheap.


In a couple of years from now, we may look at alarm clocks and "sleep regulation", in the same way as we look today at other "great" human inventions in the league of cigarettes, alcohol or radioactive cosmetics



Some of the bad rules that hurt sleep:


it is ok to use alarm clock to cut sleep short
it is ok to work in shifts
it is ok to save time by sleeping less and working more
it is ok to pull kids out of bed in time for school
it is ok to skip nights before important exams, etc.

 

Sleep is the time the body can undergo repair and detoxification. Poor sleep patterns are linked to poor health - and those who sleep less than six hours a night have a shorter life expectancy than those who sleep for longer. So sleep has a profound effect on our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.



A typical night's sleep comprises five different sleep cycles. The first four stages of each cycle are regarded as quiet sleep or non-rapid eye move-ment (NREM). The final stage is denoted by rapid eye movement (REM).

 Though covered by lids, the movement of the eyes denotes the different stages of sleep.However, during the REM that follows there is a high level of brain activity.This is the stage associated with dreaming, causing temporary paralysis and so preventing us from acting upon our dreams.


Many of us had the experience of going to bed upset or anxious and waking up the following morning to somehow find that things are better because while we sleep the dreaming brain is working to solve our emotional problems. Dreams keep us psychologically healthy; they do this automatically without hope from waking mind.



Do we need to dream?

                        Yes we need do, in fact we sleep in order to dream.



 During our waking hours, the body burns oxygen and food to provide energy. This is known as a catabolic state, in which more energy is spent than conserved, using up the body's resource when we sleep we move into an anabolic state - in which energy conservation, repair and growth take over.



Every tissue in the body is renewed faster during sleep than at any time when awake, Research suggests that sleeping more when fighting infectious illness aids recovery.



JUST as the world is governed by light and dark, human beings also have an inbuilt body clock called the circadian rhythm. Merely resting or closing eyes is no way equivalent to sleeping as it will not move into a low energy state which gives body time to restore itself.



 While an individual experiencing lack of sleep not only gets less energy to work and feel irritated and depressed with a sense of insanity, but also suffers from many internal diseases and disorders.



Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night



“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”



A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.




HAPPY SLEEPING!

 

My Story - In Pursuit of Happiness

In Pursuit of Happiness

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

Happiness is like perfume: You can't give it away without getting a little on yourself.

The first part of my life is called   “Mamma’s boy”

It was the year of 1984 when a feeling of hope arrived in person to a passionate, poor and ill literate family in old city of Hyderabad and they choose to name him as Nitin.

My father was a cyclic mechanic and later went on to become owner of the same cycle taxi where he worked, while my mother was a homemaker who was always busy in nurturing the family which included my younger brother and sister.

I recall my mom used to sharpen the pencils with razor and keep them ready in the Natraj pencil box just because there would be a slender chance of hurting my hand if I did that myself. My mother would also track my progress and feel happy if there were more number of blunted pencils leftover in the box.

I cognize it now, how graceful was that

My father for most part of my educating life would wake me up in early mornings and he would remain awoke to observe that I don’t doze off in the middle.

My father always thought that my upbringing should be different from the way he was brought up.

He innocently had to ask me every time where to sign in the progress report, but fortunately every time I gave him a reason to be proud, because I never stood anything other than being first and second in my entire school life

This part of my life is called   “Below par”

It was in 11^th and 12^th when I discovered another being inside me, I was a born athlete and a gifted cricketer .People were envious at my defense and my reverse sweeps to  fast bowlers raised more eye brows in field than they generally  do in a beauty parlor.

In spite of all the talent I had as a cricketer I ended up becoming a street smart street cricketer, then I realized that I was lagging behind in rat race. As such, I pulled my socks up and did exceptionally well in the fourth year of my engineering to become the first to get selected on campus for a job in Mumbai in 3i InfoTech.

Although never did I aspire to become a software engineer since 6 years I earn my bread out of it, my dream of being an MBA is still a dream!

This Next part of my life is referred as “Sick at Heart”

 One day on an afternoon in Mumbai I got a call from my family stating that my mother is suffering from severe headache and has been admitted to hospital. I, unable to withstand the situation, took an immediate available flight to Hyderabad.

It is when I  directly came to care hospital I learnt that it was brain hemorrhage, and I did not know then that I was seeing my godly mother for one last time, The silence was unbearable and the vacuum it created in my life was intolerable.

With depression my heart shrunk with hurt and suffering only stretched with time, I remember searching in Google for “easiest ways to die in your sleep”!

Then one day I met a white bearded old stranger in Mumbai, he said that “it was me who was supposed to pass away and my mom traded her life for mine”, strangely I could never meet him again!

I read a quote during that time which said

“There is far more peace in acceptance than in resistance” which I think was the life transforming quote for me.

This part of my life is called “love at first sight”

Twice in my life I felt as what we call the love at first sight syndrome: first of them is when for the first time I saw a girl called durga in a family gathering and thought wow! She later went on to become my loving and caring wife.

My second occurrence was when I requested a doctor at Fernandez hospital to watch the labor operation of my wife, when the doctor confirmed that it is a girl I tasted the tears of joy and decided to name her Jhansi after my mom.

To keep this day in memory and to relive those moments I have tattooed the letter J on my right hand.

Today when I hold my mother like daughter’s hand and teach her how to walk more importantly I realize that I am       In pursuit of happiness…….