Page 92 - Nailah G Beraki-Pierre_Fear Is a Good Thing_v1_Neat

DAY 24

Focus on Good Sleep

A well-spent day brings happy sleep.
— Leonardo de Vinci

Doctors have begun prescribing sleep as medical advice due to the high
numbers of anxiety and depression, which as you know creates a great
deal of fear. Sleep is the most painless and enjoyable medical advice to
follow. Do not, however, mistake this as a plea to doctors to start pre-
scribing more sleeping pills—quite the opposite. There are severe health
consequences from taking these drugs.
But can we go so far as to say that a lack of sleep can kill you out-

right. Yes, without sleep a patient will die. Though exceedingly rare, a
lack of sleep has been known to kill a human being. A lack of sleep also
contributes to the dangerous circumstance of getting behind the wheel
of a motor vehicle and driving while drowsy. It is the cause of hundreds
of thousands of traffic accidents and fatalities each year. And it’s not
only the life of the sleep-deprived individuals that are at risk, but also
the lives of those around them.

Learning the importance of sleep will reveal a quite different truth.
Sleep is more complex and profoundly more exciting than its relevance
to our health. Sleep enhances many functions and provides an abun-
dance of nighttime benefits that service both our brains and our bodies.
There does not seem to be one major organ within the body or process

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