On snooozzzing ------by Seshu BSR Chamarty

I am not a sleep expert. In fact, I run a current account in overdraft at my ‘sleep bank’, technically called sleep backlog. I plan always to square off my negative balances in the sleep account or wished I could. I understand how loss of sleep accumulates over the time mostly over overtime work. In addition I had to go to the airport or railway station very early in the mornings or very late in the nights to see off or receive our family guests. Desperate to get some tips on sleep, I bought sufficient literature coincidentally at the Railway stations. There is a complaint from my wife I am losing sleep over telling about to sleep to others. Despite her I give my sleep talk as under to wake up or put to sleep a keen eye.

How much sleep one requires to stay healthy? Some experts say it is between 6 and 8 hours a night or day (also keeping in mind those on night calls). I wondered, is it not more than half of our lifetime; I included travel to my work and back. I envy a particular guy whose wife often complained to my wife, ‘My husband sleeps like a log/ baby’. Poor man, he was compared to the log or baby depending on his movements in bed or her current vibes towards him. Talking of babies, a baby sleeps for 12 to 14 hours by its 12th month, and like our adults babies too pass through up to 5 REM cycles in sleep. Besides they sleep through the day and that concerns most working mothers for reasons that they are likely to be disturbed by the wide awake baby in the dead of the night. Again, talking of sound sleep, I saw one Kumbhakarna sleeping right through a wedding function with the band in high octave (thank god --not his wedding). Many elderly people are hard to hit the sack for full stint of sleep despite they need it medically -- perhaps need to visit toilets becomes more frequent and imminent.
All said and done it is an enigma why we have to sleep in the first place. The answer given in my literature says: sleep is a must for the human body for it has to carry out its internal repairs like cleaning, getting rid of the dead cells, rejuvenating systems etc. I find some sleep with pillows stacked high under their heads or backs while some do without. My literature advised I should roll a thin towel into a convenient lump and place the same under my neck. For that matter, while asleep, I roll on my bed making different postures like in Dasavatarams. I got a helpful hint that doing so helps one not get bed sores (not bad). These days I lie on to my left side while sleeping that would do a world of good to my gas as my literature says as my stomach empties contents faster into my duodenum in small intestines in line with the gravitational pull (Must be a genius who wrote this tip, next to Newton).

In my experience, the daily siesta (the afternoon nap) works wonders to keep our mind refreshed. A catnap in the office won’t hurt and it is the answer. I see some high tech offices allowed their sleep-hungry staff to officially snooze to increase the general health of company. In other ‘normal’ offices, no wonder certain folks improvise sleeping with eyes wide open and staring blankly at the monitors or notebooks as if reading from them without registering the details. Same thing goes in meetings where except the speaker the rest are sleep arrested. On a sad note we note accidents involving motor vehicles, trains and even flights when drivers concerned (unconcerned) suffered mainly from sleep problems. In that state they are prone to get momentary lapsed into unconsciousness loosing controls at the dashboard. (I pity the average engine driver in railway trains tagged by many sleepers coaches containing sleeper passengers and himself running on stony or wooden hard sleepers misses his sleep).

Humor apart, the last chapter in sleep literature says we dream during a cycle called Rapid Eye Moment stage. As a child I used to wonder do we really dream in colors or just in the old Black and White movie version. Now it seems to be a settled matter that we see events in our dreams in multicolor (maybe that is after color TV came into the picture). Another interesting tidbit is that we get dreams mostly in early morning (most are sweet in my case). It was also mentioned we dream only during REM stage of sleep in each of 5 rounds but only could remember (vividly or vaguely) the dreams occurred during last REM, that happens when we were about to wake up. Those who had a peg or two too many, may wake up to some confusion as their gaunt and ghastly faces stare back from the bathroom mirrors. It is thanks to the lack of normal sleep cycles in their drunken dozing. What one needs therefore is some quality sleep on a light stomach maybe after some warm drink that has no caffeine or other stimulant, and optionally with moving lips that say just a prayer.