All italicized items for my entry below was lifted from the one-page announcement in the PDI (March 21, 2002, A19). Because health matters...

Enter Sandman

We sleep without thinking about it - and that's the problem.

March 21 - It's International Sleep Well Day today. It's supposed to be part of a global awareness campaign to remind us of the clinical importance of sleep in our lives.

I read some stuff on it though my head and eyes hurt. I spent all night on the computer doing some work, on the phone (hello kantogirl?), and watching Nathan on the boob tube (Private Conversations with Boy Abunda). I slept at around 2:30 am and enjoyed around three hours of sleep.

Yes. From both text and experience, I can tell you, sleep! It's damn important. Don't bother blogging tonight, don't even finish this article. Just go to bed and enjoy some snooze (it's not just the alarm clock's option you know).

The obvious effects of human sleep deprivation are on behavior, because the cereberum needs not sleep and cannot obtain any rest during wakefulness.

We need to sleep so that, despite all these caffeine-drowned nights studying, cramming, working, watching TV, or just plain blogging, we can give time for our frayed nerves to rest and straighten up. The burden of our existence is too heavy even for the power of the Nervous System to carry all day long.

We need to sleep so that, despite great egos, we remember we are human. In this sphere, even time to sleep is considered a luxury. And of course, as we are always enjoined to remember, "bawal magkasakit" (such an anti-human statement so characteristic of the inhuman spirit of our times).

So though we must rest for practical purposes, let slumber come upon you too as a boon. Because in the end, everything we keep awake for will go when we go. And it would only matter maybe to the next generation, probably with less of our sleep and more of our medication.

Lest we forget what we are living for, let us pause to remember our dreams. Tomorrow is a whole 'nother day.

Perhaps sleep evolved as a way to remain quiet and thus protected during the night.

Well, I'm off to bed now to practice what I now preach. Don't let the bedbugs bite! (Or let the lot of them have their feast and just enjoy a full night's rest.) Good night. Sleep tight.

Perhaps we need to sleep in order to dream