Friday, April 21, 2006

Sleep - Quality vs. Quantity

Out of kindness, a friend advised me not to multi-task and to get more sleep and rest. I listened to his advice and tried going to bed around 9.30pm to 10.30p.m. He said that everyone should get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep.

However, I find that each time afer 5 solid hours of deep sleep, I would automatically get up. This is why I end up writing blogs at 3.45 to 4.45 a.m. sometimes. I cannot sleep more than 5 hours! It has been like that for the past 4 decades! Best of all, I have never had panda eyes despite the short hours of sleep!

I remember, once when I was in Primary Six, I decided I would sleep on the bench in the living room as my two sisters had gone to a party and I was scared of sleeping alone in the bedroom. (Thanks to the scary Pontianak (ghost) movie I had watched the day before!) Papa was writing his music in the living room. Around midnight, he heard a loud sound, and in his absent mindedness, he thought a coconut had probably dropped from a tree near our kampong (village) house. When my two sisters returned from the party, they were horrified to find me sleeping on the floor! Apparently I had fallen from the mother-of-pearl bench and had continued sleeping soundly.! Only then did papa realise that the sound he had heard earlier was not caused by a fallen coconut, but by his chubby little daughter!

Guess, I have not altered much in my sleeping pattern and idiosyncracies. I guess when I say I have been sleeping an average of 5 hours a day all these 40 years of my life, it translates into having an extra time of 5 years! Can my buddy, Professor Richard Tam, check my mathematical calculation please?

I am not a doctor or a mathematician. From my experience, I can only conclude that sleepiness and tiredness is all in the mind. Whenever I am bored, I will doze off. This is why I am terrified of attending convocations, boring lectures/sermons/movies etc. My travelling time in the bus, train and plane is always well utilised as I will fall asleep. Once my friends who were travelling with me to Kathmandu, tickled me with a feather as they could not stand the sight of me sleeping so soundly. They told me I never stirred at all!

I find that at home, there are so many interesting things to do that sleep becomes boring. There are so many worthy books to read, articles/letters to write, musical instruments to play and lovely music to listen to, new recipes to try out, great movies/documentaries to watch, etc. etc.! Why sleep and dream? Why not be awake and make our dreams a reality?

It is quite comforting to me to find out that most of the great politicians in the world also make do with 4 to 5 hours sleep a day. However, I am no politican lah...
just a kaypo (busybody) who is interested in too many activities in this beautiful world of ours.

Gan Chau

3 comments:

thanh7580 said...

I've found that I'm also sleeping less nowadays but do not feel tired like in the past. I still quite a lot of sleep, usually about 7 hours but not as much as about half a year ago when after 8 hours I would still feel tired some days. I think its been due to my healthier diet and much more exercise.

If I only slept 5 hours a day, then I wouldn't definitely have black rings around my eyes and be yawning all day through work.

jaffeboy said...

I personally prefer quantity but MaMa say quality is more important. So I've decided that when we go to bed at night, it will be quality then during the day I can get my quantity... hehehe

The Oriental Express said...

Glad that you enjoy my blog. Hope readers will be encouraged by what they read.

Cheers and all the best,

Gan Chau