The most powerful influence on our effectiveness in waking life is sleep.
But it is also what we’re most willing to give up first in our endless quest to be more productive.
We have no idea how impaired we have become through our commitment to keep going – our compromised functioning blurring and distorting our very memory of what it is like to be awake.
Our lack of sleep leaves us more vulnerable to illness and to accident. It mutes our creativity. It negatively influences our moods, increasing our irritability and reactivity towards others.
And yet we carry on as if we are inexhaustible, wearing our sleeplessness as a badge of honour or bravery or commitment.
We’ve elevated productivity above taking care of ourselves, producing exactly the opposite of our intentions. We lie to ourselves about what we’re up to.
We’ve forgotten – or denied – that we have bodies with limits.
And as we do all this we fall asleep to our own aliveness.
When are we going to wake up to this madness and go to bed?
