Are you struggling to get enough sleep each night? Are you waking up in the night? Relying on supplements or medication to fall asleep or stay asleep? Well, you are not alone. It seems many of us are struggling to acquire the rest that our bodies need. As many as one in ten adults report experiencing bouts of insomnia. About 15% of adults have trouble falling asleep, and about 18% of adults have a struggle to remain asleep.
New research offers new clues on ways we can help our bodies get the rest it needs. Our body clock, or circadian rhythm, relies on consistent wake-up cues—like morning light—to regulate hormone levels, help us fall asleep, and stay alert during the day. Inconsistent wake-up times are likened to frequent “jet-lag,” and can lead to poor sleep, sluggishness, and even increased risks for heart, immune, and mental-health problems. The experts suggest that if you need to sleep in one morning, keep it within an hour of your normal time to avoid disrupting your rhythm.
Even if we go to bed late or our sleep is disturbed during the night, our rhythm will remain best regulated if we still wake up within an hour of our normal waking time. If you need to catch up on lost sleep, opt for a short nap before 3 pm. Other ways we can keep protecting our sleep include getting out in the sun as soon as we wake up! This alerts our internal clocks to the fact that it’s daytime and tells our body to stop producing melatonin. At night, avoiding light close to bedtime is also important, as the dark is a cue to your body to begin producing melatonin so you can get some rest.
Just as God invites us to walk in rhythm with Him rather than in hurried chaos, how might committing to a consistent wake-up time each day help us live out a deeper trust in His timing for our rest and renewal?
While waking the same time every day may feel like a bit of a drag, especially when the weekend rolls around and the need to get out of bed is less urgent, there are real benefits to employing discipline in our daily rhythm of rest. Our bodies desire predictability, stability, and ultimately self-discipline. Interestingly, pretty much every part of maintaining a healthy body requires us to commit to doing things that don’t always feel fun in the moment, such as eating our vegetables and getting cardio in. God gave us bodies that require proper stewardship, and when we fail to care for our flesh, it starts to break down.
Our bodies mimic God’s creation in that we thrive off stable rhythms. Psalm 19:1-6 shares how Creation reveals who God is to the world. Verse 6 says, “It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.” The text is describing how the sun rises and falls day after day. It’s reliable.
God set all things in motion in a way that reveals beauty, but that is also functional. We need day and night to be a stable pattern so we have something predictable to plan our lives around, so the flowers have a consistent source of light, and the creatures have a predictable time to rest. Our bodies also flourish when we live with predictable and consistent patterns that follow the sun.
Our modern world so often ignores the natural patterns because we have become so disconnected from nature ,but all created things are connected. We often stay up too late or wake up too late or even too early because we are not attuned to the sunrises or the sunsets. We spend so much more of our time indoors, in front of screens, and our bodies are struggling to remain in harmony with nature's rest and waking patterns.
It’s time to slow down and take note of the rising and the setting of the sun. To hear what morning sounds like and feel the sunshine as you start the day. The more we can connect with the natural world, the more our bodies find what they need, such as the early morning Vitamin D from a short morning walk or the calming sound of evening creatures. If we are struggling to get proper rest and to live with peace, change your habits in a way that is intentional about getting yourself outside more and in tune with nature's rhythms.
Psalm 46:10 says, He says, 'Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Some of the stillness God may be inviting you to embrace could look like stilling yourself at a more suitable time at night so your body is better able to rest and arise consistently in the morning. Choosing patterns of living that work with how we were created, rather than doing things that push our bodies in ways that feel less natural, is one way to trust God. As the Creator, it is up to him what form our design should take, and as the created, we must do our best to honor the parameters within which the life we’ve been given must exist. Setting a consistent morning alarm can be one way you trust God with your health and well-being.
Why Does God Command That We Rest?
Psalm 127:2 warns, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” The Bible tells us that when we skimp on our sleep, we become anxious. It's a spiritual and biological fact that our minds and bodies quickly grow exhausted by our toil. How many of us are riddled with anxiety because we are working too much and are not honoring our bodies' biological need for rest!
On average, adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep at night. According to the CDC, it is estimated that 83.6 million adults are getting less than 7 hours of sleep each night. Way too many of us are neglecting to allow our bodies even the minimum number of hours of rest we need to function on a regular basis. While it may seem harmless to spend each day running on caffeine and adrenaline, it’s not what God wants for us, and over time, our bodies and minds suffer when we go without rest.
God instructs us to live with rhythms of work and rest. He warns against anxiety, striving, and toil. Hebrews 4:9-10 tells us, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” God models the sabbath for us and invites us to follow his lead. He shows us and instructs us to make time to work hard. To create and explore this world he has made. Love your people, be diligent, and serve others. And then he invites us to sleep. To calm our minds and bodies and still our souls. He offers us peace and reprieve in those moments. We need to employ this pattern each day as we set consistent times to stop working, go to bed, wake up, and then do our best with the day he has given us.
Photo Credit: Malvestida Magazine/Unsplash
