One of the best ways to get a proper rest is by sleeping; it's effective and requires zero cost compared to the other ways people choose to relax. With my little time in the world, I can confidently say that nothing helps rejuvenate the body better than having conducive sleep for the right duration, and as I mentioned earlier, it's quite effective.
Being able to sleep whenever we want is a blessing, and many people don't know how blessed they are until they start struggling to sleep at the time when they really need to. Although sleep is natural for humans, a lot of things can make it very difficult, and it can get as bad as people seeking medical assistance in some situations when they can't sleep as they should.
I used to be a very heavy sleeper while growing up, which earned me the name Jonah. My family and neighbors wouldn't stop teasing me about my sleeping habit, and they always said it would be hard for anyone to beat me if we got into a sleeping competition, but that's just an exaggeration.
Truly, I will sleep anywhere and anytime because I didn't have reasons not to do so, but as the years passed, adulthood forced me to put my sleeping time under check. My sleeping hours were trimmed down because of my job; we got paid according to the job we did, so forcing myself to stay up was inevitable, and there were days when I tried to work overnight because I needed the money.
Surprisingly, my body adapted to sleeping for just a few hours every day, but it got to a stage when my sleep pattern was completely ruined, and that was the beginning of my journey to insomnia. I battled it for some time and couldn't get over it easily. The only thing that put me to sleep back then was when I was completely drained, so it took me sometimes two days of working tirelessly before my body system would submit itself to a proper sleep.
I was able to recover from insomnia after quitting the job, even though it was quite challenging. Many years passed, and I found myself struggling with insomnia again as I slowly drowned in depression because I couldn't get a job after school.
I would sit all through the night thinking about my future, and it went on like that for a long time, which affected my health negatively. I easily got drained during the day, and the worst part of everything was the psychological impact of these sleepless nights. It was terrible, and I pray never to go through such an experience again.
It was so terrible that I started depending on alcohol to knock me out because my alcohol tolerance is low and a few shots would make me sleep, but it wasn't a healthy means to treat insomnia because any day I can't get alcohol at night, my condition worsens.
Unfortunately, I couldn't treat my insomnia successfully until I got a job, but after I secured one, I was able to work on myself and try never to get tangled with insomnia. Although there are times when I still find it very difficult to sleep, it doesn't last more than two to three days.
As a kid, I always had a weird dream, and whenever I woke up to reality, the effect of this dream was illness. This dream doesn't happen unless I want to fall ill, and it gave me a lot of concern.
It was funny to my mom because I would just tell her that I would fall ill today and that it would happen that way. I tried explaining the dream to her, but we only prayed against nightmares, and it was like that until someone made it clear to me that it was a physiological thing. When I grew up, I learned about how active our brains can be even when we are sleeping, which explained the reason for the dream.
In conclusion, the importance of sleeping can't be quantified, and it can't be replaced with anything. Whenever I feel very tired and can't continue functioning as I should, I try as much as possible to sleep. Sleeping for an hour is capable of helping me feel very much better, so why wouldn't I embrace it?
This is my entry for today's prompt, and the initiative is open to every member of the Hive community, so feel free to check the announcement post.
All images were gotten from Canva