Madness Monday- What time are you going to bed?

At what hour then would be the best time to go to bed? Dr. Matthew Walker wrote an article and had this information to share:

"Every hour of sleep before midnight is worth two after midnight. Your grandparents (and great grandparents) probably adhered to that creaky adage. “The mythology is unfortunate, because there’s no pumpkin-like magic that occurs,” says Dr. Matt Walker, head of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. And while nothing special happens to you or the quality of your sleep at the stroke of midnight, many do wonder: What’s the best time to go to bed?

Walker says your sleep quality does change as the night wears on.

“The time of night when you sleep makes a significant difference in terms of the structure and quality of your sleep,” he explains. Your slumber is composed of a series of 90-minute cycles during which your brain moves from deep, non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep to REM sleep. “That 90-minute cycle is fairly stable throughout the night,” Walker explains. “But the ratio of non-REM to REM sleep changes.”

He says that non-REM sleep tends to dominate your slumber cycles in the early part of the night. But as the clock creeps toward daybreak, REM sleep muscles in. That’s significant, because some research has suggested that non-REM sleep is deeper and more restorative than lighter, dream-infused REM sleep—though Walker says both offer important benefits.

What does this have to do with the perfect bedtime? The shift from non-REM to REM sleep happens at certain times of the night regardless of when you go to bed, Walker says. So if you hit the sack very late—at, say, 3 AM—your sleep will tilt toward lighter, REM-heavy sleep. And that reduction in deep, restorative sleep may leave you groggy and blunt-minded the next day.

Therefore in order to have more restful sleep it would seem sensible that we should go to bed before midnight so that we can go through all of our sleep cycles and be fully rested by the time we need to get up. This means that our retiring hour should be calculated to afford enough time to receive the full nights sleep. To make it very simple startsleeping.org has a sleep calculator you can use here .

Rest does not only mean sleep as you can see in the Merriam-Webster definition of rest:

Do you see number 4? Peace of mind or spirit, what a wonderful thought. This means we need to take time out for some re-creation!

We need to get out in the sun, fresh air and in nature, God's second book. It is utterly amazing how much tension, just walking outside, can release from tight shoulders. It rejuvenates and revives us go be able to work more.

Thankfully God, in His omniscient wisdom, created the Sabbath for us that we may have one day a week that we can drop everything worldly, go to church and concentrate only on Him. What a blessing this is as it provides physical and spiritual rest in Him. He will provide us with peace as He promises in John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Finally we can have rest by spending time in His word, the Bible, and in prayer. In the Bible we discover the peace He promises. Bible study is spiritual food. Reading the promises in His word will give repose to our souls. Then falling on our knees in prayer we may unburden ourselves by "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." 1 Peter 5:7.

- Mystina Zummach