Cause of death: Lack of sleep
Has anyone else noticed how busy the world has gotten? I am in the process of finishing the preparations for our bi-annual planning meeting at the church. So for the past couple of weeks I have been looking at my family's calendar, the church calendar, event dates and new ministries for next year. I took a glance at everything and I thought, "Wow, 2018 is going to be a busy year." Then it was as if 2017 spoke to me, "Hey, I wasn't a slow year." It is true. There doesn't seem to be a not busy year in my future or anyone's future for that matter. I heard someone say one time that they were so tired they could die. I have often wondered if that was true. Could you die from lack of sleep? I went to my good friend Google to find out if you could really do it.
According to most medical sites I went to in theory you could die from lack of sleep. Now how long was a great debate. I seen as long as six months and as short as a couple of weeks. Each site
though was careful to say that there was nobody on record to have died from lack of sleep. The body has a emergency switch that will turn your lights out and put you to sleep before you get to the deadly lack of sleep level. However on “news” sites such has Huffington Post there are reports of people dying from lack of sleep after eleven days. But there are reports, even in that article, about people going eleven days or longer without sleep without dying or even becoming deathly sick. So who really knows? It is like the age old question, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootise Pop?" Nobody will ever know.
One of the biggest issues I seen in my research was your immune system gets weakened without sleep. So many people got sick and died because their immune system couldn’t fight off the sickness. A sickness that at one time their body could have fought off even without medicine turned deadly due to the lack of sleep. Our body does a lot of healing during sleep and it restores things that it burnt up while awake. Without sleep the body doesn’t heal as fast. or have the time to produce the things it uses to fight off infections and sicknesses.
Here is something to think about. There has been a lot of studies that have found the lack of sleep can have the same effects on the body as drinking alcohol. In fact, according to a study by the Royal Society of Public Health in the UK going seventeen hours without sleep is the same as having a blood
alcohol level of .05 which will get you a DUI. Going twenty-four hours without sleep is the same as having a .1 blood alcohol level. Reading that made me think about those days when I worked over nights at Target often going forty to forty-eight hours without sleep. Who knew I needed a designated driver for those drives home. Well, the car behind me that one night may have knew. I feel asleep at a stop light with nobody behind me. I was awaken however long later with a line of cars behind me and the one behind me blowing his horn repeatedly. I am sure he was questioning my driving ability has he was giving me the “your #1” finger.
As dangerous as it is to go without physical sleep to refill your body it is even more dangerous to go without refilling your spiritual tank. We think we can go weeks without church because we see Christian people other places. We think we can go months without reading out Bible because we listen to a few Christian songs that have some scripture in it. We think we can go days without praying because others are praying for us. The truth is that every hour we spend away from God is another hour our spiritual immune system becomes weakened. Temptations that used to be small and easy to resist becomes unresistable. Storms that once would have been a small cooling off summer thunder storm become a level 5 hurricane that wrecks our life. Bumps in the road that once would not have even made us stagger will cause us to fall down and not be able to get back up. We are not as strong as we think. That is why Paul reminded us we are not at physical war we are fighting a spiritual war. That means we are not armed to fight this war on our own. We need God.
So Sunday morning when your tempted to stay in bed because you were out late or because your tired from you long week remember the next week will be even longer without God. Tonight when your tempted to drift off to sleep before spending time in prayer remember you will soon be drifting away from God. When you have too much to do and can’t find time to study your Bible remember that is the way Satan likes it because he knows your getting weak and are ready to fall. Bacon may help get your physical body ready to take on the day but prayer is what gets your spiritual body ready to fight off Satan and his powers. Take the extra time to put on the full armor of God. It will be worth it in the long run.
Parting Thought: Have a great day unless you have other plans
According to most medical sites I went to in theory you could die from lack of sleep. Now how long was a great debate. I seen as long as six months and as short as a couple of weeks. Each site
One of the biggest issues I seen in my research was your immune system gets weakened without sleep. So many people got sick and died because their immune system couldn’t fight off the sickness. A sickness that at one time their body could have fought off even without medicine turned deadly due to the lack of sleep. Our body does a lot of healing during sleep and it restores things that it burnt up while awake. Without sleep the body doesn’t heal as fast. or have the time to produce the things it uses to fight off infections and sicknesses.
Here is something to think about. There has been a lot of studies that have found the lack of sleep can have the same effects on the body as drinking alcohol. In fact, according to a study by the Royal Society of Public Health in the UK going seventeen hours without sleep is the same as having a blood
As dangerous as it is to go without physical sleep to refill your body it is even more dangerous to go without refilling your spiritual tank. We think we can go weeks without church because we see Christian people other places. We think we can go months without reading out Bible because we listen to a few Christian songs that have some scripture in it. We think we can go days without praying because others are praying for us. The truth is that every hour we spend away from God is another hour our spiritual immune system becomes weakened. Temptations that used to be small and easy to resist becomes unresistable. Storms that once would have been a small cooling off summer thunder storm become a level 5 hurricane that wrecks our life. Bumps in the road that once would not have even made us stagger will cause us to fall down and not be able to get back up. We are not as strong as we think. That is why Paul reminded us we are not at physical war we are fighting a spiritual war. That means we are not armed to fight this war on our own. We need God.
So Sunday morning when your tempted to stay in bed because you were out late or because your tired from you long week remember the next week will be even longer without God. Tonight when your tempted to drift off to sleep before spending time in prayer remember you will soon be drifting away from God. When you have too much to do and can’t find time to study your Bible remember that is the way Satan likes it because he knows your getting weak and are ready to fall. Bacon may help get your physical body ready to take on the day but prayer is what gets your spiritual body ready to fight off Satan and his powers. Take the extra time to put on the full armor of God. It will be worth it in the long run.
Parting Thought: Have a great day unless you have other plans
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