You don’t realize how important sleep is until you find yourself deprived of it. Last night I got one hour of sleep. I laid awake all night. You know how it is. You lie there thinking that any moment sleep will take you over and you find yourself in dream land. But it didn’t happen for me. The first time I looked at the clock it was 3:08. The next time I looked it was 4:22. I almost got up, but thought it would defeat the purpose of ever getting to sleep at all.

In retrospect I probably should have wandered around the house. Eventually I fell asleep at around 5:00 a.m. My wife’s alarm went off at 5:55. Since one of our cars is in the shop I had to take her to work. So there was no making up at least another hour or two of that precious unconsciousness. I had to get out of bed with only about an hour of zzz’s.

Sleep deprivation is not fun. I found myself more cranky throughout the day. My attentiveness was less than sharp. My mind wandered often. I daydreamed of what it would be like when I would get to crawl back into bed and make up for that precious lost sleep. And, of course, this happened to be on a day that I had an evening meeting. Thankfully I made it through OK.

But here’s why you should skip a night’s sleep every now and then:

1. It makes you appreciate what a gift a decent night’s shuteye really is. There’s good reason we’ve been given this gift by our Creator. It’s a natural way of reviving both our body and our spirit.
2. It gives you reason to research ways to get better, more consistent nightly rest. I found this article about gadgets that’ll help that very process.
3. It makes you sympathize with people who have a consistent problem with insomnia. I don’t know how people survive without consistent nightly rest. If you are one of those people, please know that I pray for you.

I’m sorry this is such a short post, but I’ve got to get to bed. Here’s hoping for a better night’s sleep and for sharper, more awake and aware Tom tomorrow.

How do you cope when you have insomnia?