For Wilshire Baptist Church
During Lent and Easter at Wilshire, we’ve talked about spiritual practices: fasting, prayer, divine reading, forgiveness, sacrifice, confession and spiritual celebration. In the midst of this, I may have come upon something that isn’t usually talked about in those terms but might just be a spiritual practice that is universal: sleep. Not lazy sleep or self-indulgent sleep, but restorative sleep.
I’ve had sleep on my mind after spending time recently with Dr. Michael Scullin, director of Baylor’s Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Lab. There, he is leading research that is adding to our knowledge of how sleep impacts the functioning of our brain and thus everything we do. Bottom line: A good night’s sleep sets us up for a good life.
I was with Scullin at the lab working on an article for a Baylor publication and learned a lot about his research but also about the workings of the brain in general. During the conversation, we talked about how sleep is universal — how every human who has ever lived has experienced sleep — and Scullin noted how sleep is talked about in ancient texts including the Bible. He said:
“My favorite passage from the New Testament is Jesus is out on the water with his disciples. A huge storm comes in, the disciples are freaking out, they go to Jesus and he’s sleeping. And when he wakes up, based on some translations, he says, ‘Quiet!’ I’m just imagining: Everyone’s freaking out, but he’s sleeping, he’s valuing his sleep, and he’s just telling the storm to be quiet because he wants to go back to sleep.”
I’ve rolled that around in my head during the weeks leading to Easter and I get several impressions: In the story out on the water, Jesus is resting up from his encounters during his ministry and preparing his body and mind for what is to come, while his disciples are awake with fear. It seems to me Jesus is showing us how to rest in our trust and faith that God will provide for us during the storms of life. And perhaps there’s a message that we should catch some sleep while we can to recharge and be ready to deal with the challenges ahead.
That may be a flimsy theological take on faith and sleep, but here is something more down to earth that is undeniable: Sleep is more important to our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being than many of us seem to understand. The popular notion of “you snooze, you lose” is counter to what science shows.
Research by Scullin and others indicates that adults need seven to nine hours of sleep nightly, while teens need eight to 10 hours. During one of the phases of sleep, our brains are washed with spinal fluid that helps clear out debris and repairs DNA and synapses. When we sleep too little and shortchange the brain’s natural self-cleaning cycle, we risk cognitive issues in the long term, and in the short term, we set ourselves up for fatigue, depression and loss of productivity, and we risk making poor decisions that can endanger us and others.
Putting it bluntly: When we ignore our need for sleep, we degrade this remarkable body and dishonor this precious life we’ve been given by the God who created us.
I ran this by Scullin in an email after Easter, and I mentioned how in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is praying and is upset that his disciples are sleeping and not awake with him. It seems like in this story, Jesus demonstrates there are times when we need to be awake and attentive. When things become so dire and overwhelming and out of our control, we can stay awake with God — to talk to God, lay out our fears, and ask for perseverance and the strength to trust and obey God’s plan.
Scullin said about the two stories featuring Jesus and sleep: “I do think the contrast is interesting. It’s like he’s saying (or showing through behavior) that you should value getting your sleep even in the storm, because there will come an unexpected time when you’ll need to be fully energized to restrict your sleep for reasons that are bigger than yourself.”
So, there it is: Sleep is good for us!