HEALTH REPORT #7
Priceless & Necessary: Adequate Rest & Sleep
Learn how absolutely necessary it is for you to secure Adequate Rest & Sleep!
Restoration of your Nerve Energy happens only through Adequate Rest & Sleep!
And with Adequate Rest & Sleep, your body revitalizes, repairs, restores, renews & rejuvenates!
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Are Adequate Rest & Sleep "The Missing Energy Enhancers" in your life that are preventing you from reaching Superlative Health? Are you following the other 9 Energy Enhancers but still suffering in ill health? Are you habitually losing Sleep as you pursue work or leisure-time activities? If so, then no matter how well you supply the other Energy Enhancing, physiological "Basics of Life," you will neither reach nor maintain your highest level of health possible! Without Adequate Rest and Sleep, you will always feel tired and sluggish... unless you resort to stimulants, that is. Without Adequate Rest and Sleep, you will always be incapable of thinking powerfully or articulating sharply... unless you resort to stimulants, that is. Without Adequate Rest and Sleep, you will always feel frustrated and be unable to easily cope with life's problems and be unable to easily make the best decisions... unless you resort to stimulants, that is. Without Adequate Rest and Sleep, you will always build Enervation and Toxemia and take The Descent into Disease... whether or not you resort to stimulants, that is!
get out of bed in the morning... "WITH A BOUNCE!"
Researchers have been studying Sleep for many years and have discovered a few important facts about Sleep. But physiologists still admit with chagrin: "We know very little about the basic mechanism of Sleep." Whatever the mechanism at work behind Sleep, the fact is that we need it; and we can't do without it! This much, we Hygienists have fully established: Sleep is a part of the life of every animal and human in the world. Sleep and only Sleep is absolutely necessary for renovation and recharging of the nervous system and affords a revitalization for other structures so that the organism can continue to function normally and be WELL.
Sleep provides us with these 2 primary needs:
#1 A period of revitalization for the nervous system & renewing of Nerve Energy,
#2 A time of decreased activity for the repair of organic damages & rebalancing of body chemistry.
Toxins which are eliminated more rapidly while sleeping accumulate to an abnormal, unhealthy degree if one does not take Adequate Sleep. These retained wastes damage tissues and organs throughout the body. In addition, Enervation resulting from insufficient Sleep results in a lowering of available, vital Nerve Energy; and this causes all organs to work less efficiently, resulting in poor digestion and in toxin accumulation from impaired liver, kidney, lung, and bowel function. In other words: "If the nervous system is not recharged by sleeping on a nightly basis, it
cannot send the proper number of nerve impulses to
the various bodily organs for their proper func
tioning! Consequently, these organs function poorly. The result is greater toxin accumulation, and eventually, the individual takes the relentless Descent into Disease."
Study The Health Seekers' YearBook for your best education in Natural Hygiene.
Remember this, Dear Health Seeker... Natural Hygiene is a Program for getting well and staying well that is made up of The 10 Energy Enhancers. And none of these 10 Energy Enhancers is as "Priceless & Necessary" as #4: ADEQUATE REST & SLEEP! For the body cannot revitalize, repair, restore, renew, and rejuvenate without "adequate doses of #4." For the very ill individual, "huge doses of #4" will surely be required!
The 10 Energy Enhancers
1.Cleanliness Inside & Out
2.Pure Air
3.Pure Water
4.Adequate Rest & Sleep
5.The Ideal Diet of Fresh, Raw
Fruits & Veggies, Nuts & Seeds
6.Right Temperatures
7.Adequate Sunlight
8.Regular Exercise
9.Emotional Balance
10.Nurturing Relationships
The 10 Energy Robbers
1.Uncleanliness Inside & Out
2.Impure Air
3.Impure Water
4.Inadequate Rest & Sleep
5.The Standard American Diet:
Milk & Dairy, Meat, Bread & Cereal,
Fruit & Vegetables (cooked & condimented)
6.Abnormal Temperatures
7.Inadequate Sunlight
8.Lack of Regular Exercise
9.Emotional UnBalance
10.Toxic Relationships
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care...
Sleep the death of each day's life...Sleep sore labor's bath...
Sleep the balm of hurt minds...Sleep great Nature's second course...
Sleep Chief Nourisher in Life's Feast!Written by Shakespeare, in 1605
While resting and sleeping at night, the marvelous repair and renewal of organs of the body take place at a more rapid rate than during our active hours. Sleep speeds up this marvelous revitalization process that so renews us and so makes life so worth living! Dr. Shelton entices us into an early evening's slumber with this promise: "Sleep and only Sleep allows us to get out of bed in the morning... with a bounce!" Tell me, Dear Health Seeker, in greeting your day, is that how you get out of bed in the morning?
To Conserve & Replenish Nerve Energy... Enervation always precedes Toxemia. There can be no Toxemia as long as your organs are functioning normally. As long as all the organs and organ systems of the body are functioning WELL, toxins do not accumulate. We have 9 systems in the body: skeletal, muscular, digestive, nervous, reproductive, glandular, cardiovascular, immune, and skin. And as long as these 9 systems and their tissues and organs are functioning WELL, these systems can remove all of the waste products that your cells produce in their daily activities; and these systems can then maintain you in Superlative Health! When you begin to live in such a manner, however, that you waste more Nerve Energy than you recuperate during periods of Rest & Sleep, you produce a state of Enervation. See HEALTH REPORTS #1, #2 & #3.
Nature restores herself only through Energy Enhancer #4: Adequate Rest & Sleep (and through fasting, which is simply a state of complete rest). Modern living is so exciting; there is so much to see and do, we often make the mistake of forgetting to rest. Or we fail to secure a sufficient amount of sleep, thereby depriving the body of natural, restorative processes. A still greater mistake is made when we have something to do; and in order to get it done, sooner or later, we resort to some type of stimulant. If stimulants are used in place of Adequate Rest & Sleep, then, recuperation of Nerve Energy will lag behind expenditure; and organic function slows down. As the organs and systems fail to do their daily job, Endogenous and Exogenous Toxins accumulate in excess; and the individual becomes toxemic. The very first issue of Common Health Sense carries the most extensive dissertation on the pricelessness and the necessity of securing Adequate Rest & Sleep ever published. Highlights follow:
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The Priceless Benefits of Energy Enhancers #4: Rest & Sleep!
Of course, the body itself does not "go to sleep." Bone, blood, and brawn do not "go to sleep" when the sandman shows up! Sleep is a period of complete unconsciousness of the individual and a function of the nervous system exclusively: it shuts down consciousness. (While dream activity in the unconscious may continue, that is the topic of a further HEALTH REPORT.) Non-nervous tissues of the body, such as bone and muscle and blood, do not transmit nerve impulses; nevertheless, these non-nervous tissues, too, need the period of nightly sleep, as they, too, do have their own healthy functions and need revitalization and restorative time. In other words... "All tissues in the body benefit from these 'Priceless & Necessary Energy Enhancers Adequate Rest & Sleep'!" Study these LIFE-SAVER BENEFITS:
1. During Sleep, the entire human body is permitted a priceless and profound Rest: this deep Rest cannot be bought for any amount of money!
2. During Sleep, sympathetic nervous activity decreases; and parasympathetic activity increases, reducing muscular tone to almost nil. This provides a much greater Rest of the skeletal muscles compared to that of simple, wakeful resting.
3. During Sleep, arterial blood pressure falls; pulse rate decreases; skin vessels dilate. This deep Sleep, therefore, affords deep Rest for the heart and for the muscles of the arteries.
4. During Sleep, activity of the gastrointestinal tract increases, improving digestion and absorption of food to promote better nutrition.
5. During Sleep, skeletal muscles are completely relaxed; whereas, when in resting wakefulness, and especially when under stress, they are not.
6. During Sleep, the metabolic rate falls by 10% to 20%, thus permitting the bodily tissues, organs, and systems a much-needed, deep Rest.
7. During Sleep, healing and repair wherever needed throughout the body increase. During Sleep, we GetWell! (This healing and repair is especially profound while both sleeping and undertaking a fast, and especially while doing both!)
RECUPERATION & RECOVERY = REST & SLEEP!
Recuperation from a temporary or partial exhaustion will take place with 1 or 2 days of extra Rest & Sleep. If, however, you persist in the excesses that waste Nerve Energy if you often stay out late at night, or if you daily overeat or indulge excessively in sex, or if you constantly cascade poisonous and foodless foods down your throat, plus work day and night without extra Sleep and without respecting the needs of the body for extra Rest, or if you are a "Stimulation Junkie" and seeks constant thrills and love to ride high drama, then Enervation will follow... "as night follows day"... just as Shakespeare teaches, whether you like it or not! This leads to lowered functioning capacity of every tissue, organ, and system in the body. At this point, it could take the enervated person many weeks or even many months of 12 hours a day or more of Rest & Sleep, along with Strict, Low-Keyed, Hygienic Living to GetWell.
If one organ fails to perform its proper function, due to Enervation, it fails to give the needed support to other organs; and other organs suffer and fail to support the rest of the body. Consequently, the organism begins to tumble downhill as a whole. It may seem piecemeal because one organ may reach the bottom first, but the others are tumbling along right behind. The mind-body organism is a unit. When Enervation supervenes, the whole organism suffers. Rearranging the lifestyle to align with Hygiene and relearning how to best deal with stress and taking time for Adequate Rest & Sleep are your only antidotes. And priceless as they are they cost absolutely nothing!
Whether your energy is spent by excessive use of the sensory organs such as the eyes, ears, nose, skin, etc., or in excessive motor or mental/emotional activities, the result is the same: Nerve Energy exhaustion. Enervation develops from any excessive, vital expenditure. We cannot go out and purchase Nerve Energy. Some people are so completely depleted in this so necessary stuff of life that it may take years to recover. You cannot actively regain Nerve Energy once it is spent. Passivity through EXTRA Rest & Sleep is the only way out of the depths of Enervation.
the amount mandated by our unique needs; or we suffer the dire, if not deadly, consequences.
IF SACRIFICE YOUR SLEEP, YOU MUST...
If you absolutely must sacrifice your Sleep for a period of one night or multiple nights and work late or stay up late, respecting these 4 facts of physiology in the following will definitely help you:
#1...If circumstances keep you out late, don't take an extra meal, after eating your 3 meals for the day. You'll feel better the next day for having refused to eat a late, 4th meal. Two enervating indulgences, compounded Sleep Robbing and overeating are worse than just the one or the other. Since you must be up late, you must refuse to eat another meal, even should you be genuinely hungry. You will recuperate in much shorter time from the lack of Sleep. Stay with just 3 meals for that day, even if you stay up an inordinate number of hours.
#2...Learn to accept fatigue if you lose Sleep; and learn to work, even though tired. Do not try to suppress the symptoms stemming from lack of Sleep with unHygienic measures. You can push yourself along and work, despite feeling tired. Granted, it is not fun; and it often takes sheer will power to keep going when you are so sleepy and exhausted that you can't put one foot in front of the other. But you can do it, if you must.
#3... If you are losing it and cannot keep going without stimulating yourself, stop and do consider "The Big Picture." In the immense design of things, is it really this necessary to stay up, to lose Sleep, to enervate yourself, and to take The Descent into Disease? In virtually all such moments of such soul-searching and pondering, we find that the moment's task can, indeed, wait for you to get a good night's Sleep before it must be completed. Workaholism is never the answer to success, for it sabotages the possibility of Superlative Health. And we can only be rightly called "successful" when we are not just barely alive but when we are at our best upon completion of any task!
#3...Do not stimulate yourself to keep going. If you refuse to eat or drink to excess for stimulation, exercise to excess for stimulation, or take drugs at all for stimulation, you will get home early, go to bed early, and recuperate early. Whereas, if you stimulate yourself with food and beverages (Ideal or SAD), exercise, legal drugs like coffee and cigarettes, illegal drugs, or even just with exciting thoughts and feelings, you will not be able to sleep well the coming night. You will become more and more enervated until you stop to break the Energy Robbing chain and catch up on your Sleep and recommence your Hygienic way of life. To repeat, do not stuff or otherwise stimulate yourself to keep yourself going. By thus refusing to stimulate yourself, you eventually learn to go to bed with the chickens!
the ultimate result. See HEALTH REPORTS #1, #2 & #3! You may be forever deficient of Sleep and always be sleepy. When you do not secure sufficient Sleep and if you are enervated and toxic, there is the possibility of permanent bodily damage from failure to be able to excrete the poisonous, metabolic wastes and Exogenous Toxins. Additionally, pathological damage over a period of time may be so great that there is no chance of recovery without securing an extended period of extra Rest & Sleep, coupled with all 9 of the other Energy Enhancers!
Many people try to keep working and to GetWell at the same time; but they fail, because they can't get enough Rest & Sleep to give the body a chance to revitalize and detoxify, to heal and repair its damaged tissues. While sleeping, we secure a complete Rest of body, mind, emotions, and the special senses. Everyday, some tissues and cells wear out and must be replaced. Daily, there are minute hemorrhages throughout the body to be healed. Daily, there are microtraumas to the skeletal system and tears in the muscular system. Such hemorrhages, microtraumas, and tears are simply... "the normal, natural wear and tear of life!" Our body is constantly striving to repair itself of this "wear and tear," and Adequate Sleep nightly gives the body the time needed to revitalize and then to rebuild and repair worn-out tissues.
USE YOUR COMMON HEALTH SENSE!
Some make the fatal mistake of regarding Sleep as "a waste of time" and desire to find means of eliminating it. Or they brag about how they try to "get by" with as little Sleep as possible. Where, I ask you, Dear Health Seekers, is The Common Health Sense in this? There is a Law of Cause & Effect! Dr. Shelton teaches: "We know that no action can occur without a corresponding reaction. Effort must be followed by Rest & Sleep! Human Nerve Energy is not an inexhaustible commodity! The pendulum of human energy cannot swing always in the direction of action and never in the direction of Sleep! Man must cease his activities and recharge his vital, nervous system batteries. Body, mind, and special senses must have Rest & Sleep! Superlative Health can neither be regained nor maintained without Adequate Rest & Sleep!"
Use your Common Health Sense! As human beings, our bodies are products of the natural, fearfully and wonderfully made, God-given design and, hence, obligated to obey God's Laws. We break these Laws to our detriment! In our attempts to bend God to suit our will, we only succeed in breaking ourselves! In all due respect for Rest & Sleep, we will have to accept, sooner or later, that we either procure
