Tag Archives: sleep

National Sleep Day!

I found out this weekend that today, January 3rd, is National Sleep Day. Whooee!  I am officially celebrating using some of the suggestions given on eHow in How to Celebrate National Sleep Day.

First off, I slept in — until about 8. It was wonderful knowing I didn’t have to get up right away to run off and do something…

Then I took some pictures of Quigley sleeping.  Here’s one:

And here are some sketches I made of people and animals sleeping…

  

 Though the how-to suggested I make the sketches today, I paged through my sketch diary and posted these — which I did some time ago — instead. It would have been fun to do the sketching, but that would have taken longer, and my husband is out running about, not sleeping so I’d have no person to sketch, only Quigley — and I didn’t even sketch him (the sketch above is actually of our bloodhound/black-and-tan hound, Samantha, who died a number of years ago at the age of 11)

An article I read in the Sunday Parade, where I found out about this special holiday (which is falling at a time when I am in desperate need of rest and sleep) says,

“Scientists now know that sleep is essential to memory–your brain uses those hours to arrange memories so you can better recall key emotional moments.  Other good reasons to put in pillow time: People who skimp on sleep show elevated levels of inflammation (a risk factor for heart disease and stroke) and crave higher calorie foods because of hormone imbalances)”

There. Now I’ve completed the “talk about the benefits of sleep” suggestion. 🙂 There are, of course, many other benefits than just arranging memories — for example, it’s easier to stay in fellowship when you have more sleep, you don’t have dark circles under your eyes, your brain will actually function as opposed to blanking out, simple things become doable, rather than seemingly impossible, you can actually sit down and write a blog post…And it’s free.

Sort of. Because while originally I had planned at this point to take an afternoon nap, once again events have gotten the better of me and now I need to listen to Bible Class  (during which I will not sleep).  Then we have to walk Quigley.

But still, today I love the idea that it is National Sleep Day. Or, as the Parade article referred to it, The Festival of Sleep.