sleep

Sleep. The new buzz word. I hear it everywhere these days.  Bhutan has now declared itself a happier nation. Why is that? The Prime Minister claims it’s because its citizens are sleeping more. In fact 91.2% of Bhutanese citizens have declared themselves happy.  Funnily, those who are happiest are the monks. Probably because they never marry.  

The sleep connection to happiness goes further. Shocking. 23% of married couples do not share the same bed. But these couples claim that this is the key to their successful happy. And why? Because you get a good nights sleep. The tossing and turning (or even snoring) of a partner beside you disrupts the quality of your sleep. More and more of my married friends in my circles admit this.  I’m a bit selfish; I get the bed to myself anyway.  So now, instead of staying up all night finishing off your jobs, leave it all and get to bed. And its uninterrupted sleep that’s the key.

I feel quite naïve reading all this.  In my very first blogs I spoke about my changes to become a happier person, and I thought my 8 hours a night was ridiculous and I needed less sleep. If you’ve been following my blog, you realise I did a u-turn, and I realised how non functional I was on 6 hours sleep. I agree, sleep is necessary and key to a happy life.  But its scientific attributes are only beginning to become evident, the realities of actually how a lack of sleep is hurting us, even killing us.  It makes us more stressed, irritable, on a physiological level, it increases blood pressure, depression, muscular aches, obesity, headaches. So grab a pillow and a blanket and take a snooze – it will only make you happier.