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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Spiritual Insomnia and Its Treatment

So today I'm probably giving a talk I should have given last week because it's about getting enough sleep and probably all of you crammed before your tests and you're just gonna have guilt now and it'll wreck your break.

But I thought I would call up my brother-in-law, Dr.

Sabangan, and I'm going to ask him a couple questions.

He's actually a board-certified internal medicine specialist and a pulmonologist, a sleep specialist as well.

So every waking hour, he's thinking about sleep.

So I'm going to ask him, oh yeah, you can have this 1 because I have a microphone on.

So I just want to ask him a couple of questions.

We're going to talk about spiritual insomnia today, but I want to talk about physical, well, you know, mental insomnia.

70000000 Americans suffer from some sort of sleep disorder, and 30 percent, 33 to 50 percent of Americans suffer from insomnia at any given time.

And, you know, kids that don't get enough sleep, they become dysfunctional.

They can't retain information that they're trying to learn.

So it's a huge problem, not just in college age kids, but high school kids and elementary kids.

It affects memory, cognition, retention, clarity of mind, concentration.

It's just a horrible, dysfunctional problem to have.

So too bad that we didn't tell them this last week, right?

You know, 30% will suffer short-term insomnia, but 10% will suffer long-term insomnia.

About 40% will have an accidental falling asleep during the day, and 5% of drivers will fall asleep while they're driving.

What about the statistics on falling asleep during a sermon?

It's 1 of the reasons I stay up here preaching, so I don't fall asleep.

So what are some things we can do actually to reverse insomnia for struggling with it?

Well, you got to look at the main problem.

You know, obviously in this environment, we don't have to worry about alcohol or tobacco or caffeine.

You know, caffeine, if you drink 1 cup of coffee in the morning, at 8 o'clock in the morning, it has a 16-hour effect.

You know, a lot of people say, oh, I stopped drinking caffeine at 6 o'clock in the evening.

They don't realize that it has a 16-hour effect.

Alcohol, you know, they think that having a nightcap at 6 o'clock will put them right to bed.

It's not called a nightcap for nothing, but alcohol is metabolized via the 0 kinetic disorder, the order.

And so alcohol will help you fall asleep, but 3 to 4 hours later, the metabolites of alcohol will fragment your sleep.

So the major sleep period is then shortened.

Sleeping in the same place at the same time?

It's so important to practice good sleep hygiene.

Bedtimes and rice time should be regular.

As we all know, Ellen White talks about going to bed way before midnight, approximately 2 hours before midnight, because That's when your delta wave sleep is most robust.

And so you need to go to sleep about 2 hours, the ideal time is about 2 hours before midnight.

And so sleep Hygiene is very, very important.

Especially today, we deal with a lot of electronics, digital computers, smartphones.

So we need to curtail our electronic use about 30 to 60 minutes before going to bed.

Because the more you try to fall asleep, the more you're not going to be able to fall asleep.

So sleep, your bed should be just for sleeping and resting.

Obviously you want to make your bed comfortable, your room nice and cool, fresh air coming in.

And so these are all conducive for a good night's rest.

You know, the Bible says the sleep of a laboring man is what?

So exercise, physical activity will help us.

But you don't want to do within 2 to 3 hours before bedtime.

I always tell patients to exercise early in the morning.

Because you feel tired, you feel fatigued.

Spec images of insomniacs show that their brain is hot.

And so, you know, you have to cool your brains down.

It says here I'm reading something from Sora White, from Mrs.

Is that a good counsel or is she just an old old lady?

You shouldn't listen to Like I said if you go to bed If you go to bed within a reasonable time period, preferably about 2 hours before bedtime, it's amazing.

When they put electrodes on your brain, you go through different stages of sleep, stage 1, 2, and 3, and then REM sleep, and it cycles through.

Delta wave sleep, which is stage 3, where you see these high amplitude, low voltage type of waves and they are really what you need to give you that deep, restorative sleep.

And if you don't go through that, it's gonna be hard for you to feel rested in the morning.

REM on the other hand is most preponderant after midnight.

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Spiritual Insomnia and Its Treatment

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