Why You’re Needing More Sleep

You’re needing more sleep. Some people brag about being so busy that they don’t sleep. Don’t listen to them. You need sleep.

With iPhones, on demand TV (Amazon Prime, Netlfix), laptops, and just plain old electricity, we’ve divorced ourselves from the natural cycle of sleeping at night.

My friend Adam Anderly, the genius behind Saint Systems who built the New Saint Thomas Institute website, turned me on to a great book while we were working on the NSTI project. The book is called Rework by Jason Friend and David Hansson of 37 Signals. In the book, they have a short section called “Go to Sleep!”

Making an impact (spiritually or temporally) requires vision and creativity. When you’re tired you have neither.

They give four signs of sleep deprivation:

1. Stubbornness. When you’re tired, you plow forward on whatever bad path you’re on.
2. Lack of creativity. Creativity discovers better solutions. When you’re tired, you come up with 1/10th of the solutions.
3. Diminished morale. Fatigue draws you away from big challenges. You just keep reading Facebook and checking email instead of doing something really important.
4. Irritability. You’re just ticked. You don’t have patience and patience is necessary for sanctity and success in every endeavor.

[reminder]Are you too tired? Do you show signs of fatigue? Get some sleep.[/reminder]

PS: If you’re a Member of the New Saint Thomas Institute, check out today’s latest Masters Course on “Thomas Aquinas and the Structure of Your Soul,” as it relates to this topic.