Do you feel tired, haven't been getting enough sleep lately? I think we all have gone through this at one time or another in our lives. Some people make it a regular habit to not get enough sleep. They are easy enough to spot, they are the ones that can't keep their eyes open. When I was in my youth I worked on a job that had a night shift. There was one person who seemed to never sleep during the day and he couldn't seem to keep his eyes open at night. He would be standing next to a conveyor belt and the next thing you knew he had fallen on it sound asleep. I actually saw him getting dumped off the end of a running conveyor belt while in a deep sleep. He must have just fell onto it, but he wasn't alone. I was to meet several people like him throughout my life. I worked with one man, many years later, who held down three jobs. I never knew how this was possible since it left NO time for sleep. Every time you looked over at this guy he was snoozing. After year of this routine he had a stroke. I don't know if the stroke was related to his lack of sleep or not. I was puzzled why he would work so many jobs and never go home until I met his wife.

When I was in the military we routinely would make do with much less sleep than I was used to. I was used to a solid eight hours sleep but the US Army allowed only about six hours at best in basic training so I was always tired. I have to admit that even with this shorter sleep the army managed to get a lot out of us, including those twenty mile hikes with full gear, through the sand. As for the reasons for lack of sleep that most of us suffer from, one just needs to look around at their environment. Many stores are now open 24 hours a day and tv goes on all night as does radio. It is very ease to get interested in some tv program and before you realize it, it is 3:00 am and you have to be up by 6:00 am giving you a big 3 hours sleep. Some studies have been made on the sleeping habits of this century and the results were surprising. They showed that the average person sleeps 2 hours less than the century before.

I am told that some people don't even realize that they are sleep deprived. Here is a little test to know if you are:

1. Are you very tired during the day and need a nap, do you doze off at different times?
2. Does a medical or emotional problem keep you from sleeping?
3. Do you seem to be under the weather a lot?
4. Are you feeling sleepy even when you are not active?
5. Are you taking prescription drugs that could effect you sleeping habits?

Scientists have found that they can breed flies and by leaving out one certain gene the fly becomes sleep deprived. It is still not know how sleep helps us to rejuvenate our bodies and prepare us for the next day's activities. One thing is certain however, lack of sleep can be harmful to our bodies. It seems that the ideal amount of sleep is 1/3 of our time. For example an ideal amount of sleep for one 24 hour day is 8 hours. Some people may not need this much, or at least they think that they don't. A good example of this was Thomas Edison who would cat nat for short periods of time.

For the human body to maintain a minimal standard it is recommended that a person should have a minimum of 4 hours of UNINTERRUPTED sleep. Remember this is just a minimum amount of sleep. It is also recommended that this be tied in with frequent naps that are at least 20 minutes long. Some people have what can only be termed as a disorder, it is called insomnia. Many of us think insomnia is not being able to sleep, but it is more than that. Insomnia is the difficulty in being able to sleep but it is also waking up and not being able to return to sleep. Some people have, what is known as, an unrefreshing sleep. This is also part of insomnia. Insomnia can make you feel like one of the living dead. Stress can cause insomnia, ever lay in bed starring at the ceiling thinking about things you are worried about and not being able to sleep?

A German study of sleepers has scientists convinced that our brains continue to work on problems we faced during the day. The scientists say that in the sleep state the brain might solve these problems more easily. I don't know what they base this on, but I figure that a sleeping brain doesn't have to worry about most of our activities, giving it more processing power. Well that is my theory anyway.

So try and get a good night's sleep and leave those worries behind you. Remember a rested body is a happy body.