SLEEP IS GOD. GO WORSHIP.

Sometimes we would check with others when we feel we are doing something wrong, or we are confused. During our school life our parents used say that we are always sleeping, but now the same parents say that we are not sleeping enough. Parents always care for us; therefore, we can assume that something is going wrong. Let’s see what the problem is, how it is impacting us and what are the solutions for this issue.

To do that American psychologist helped us to start the proposal with his famous ‘Hierarchy of Needs’. We have carried out a survey for age group between 30 to 45 years, 83% of them are said they are suffering from lack of sleeping hours. Those respondents showed green signal to GO with this survey.

Next step of this survey was to identify the factors influencing the sleeping hours. According to the responses, 60% of respondents said that Social Media is the worst factor influencing their sleeping hours. Office Working Hours also badly influence the sleeping hours. 90% respondents said Staying Out also influenced their sleeping hours. The good thing is 40% of the respondents said that they are not having heavy meals for dinner. 

Since the Social Media is the worst factor, the next question is validated. 50% of the respondents said they are spending more than 3 hours on smartphones in a day. The sad thing is all the respondents are spending minimum one hour with their smartphone in a day. The result of this survey is, 25% of respondents sleep only for a maximum 5 hours in a day. Another 25% of respondents sleeping 7 hours and 42% sleeping 6 hours. Now we can see how smartphones are killing our sleep.

It is the time to know the Sleep Deprivation Effects. There are 4 noticeable signs of sleep deprivation. Excessive sleepiness, Frequent yawning, Irritability & Daytime fatigue. 1st day of the week we can see that most of our colleagues are showing all these signs. Now we will go back to the previous findings that 90% of respondents said that ‘Staying Out’ is influencing their sleeping hours. Our lifestyle during the weekends is similar to the owls life. If we do not care about the sleeping hours, we must face many serious issues listed in this slide, such as Weakened immunity, Accidents, Weight gain. 

Every problem has a solution. We have summarised respondents’ valuable suggestions to improve the sleeping hours as listed. In this proposal we have seen that most of the respondents are having lack of Sleeping hour, then the most influence factor is Social media and all of us are spending minimum one hour on our mobiles. Therefore, we need to give high priority to the worst factor. If we keep electronics out of our bed or switch off Wi-Fi device will add some sleeping hours. Establish a routine when going to the bed such as going to bed on time and waking up on time. Set the scene by setting the bedroom for sleep environment based on your comfort for better sleep. Caffeine and alcohol are two common sleep disrupting culprits, avoid drinking alcohol within three hours of bedtime, and limit yourself. No matter how tempted you are, don’t turn on the television, get on your computer, or check your texts or email. Try not to expose yourself to bright light, extreme temperatures, or loud sounds. 

References:

1. https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep-deprivation/effects-on-body

Medically reviewed by Stacy Sampson, D.O. — Written by Stephanie Watson and Kristeen Cherney on May 15, 2020

2. https://www.health.harvard.edu/sleep/8-reasons-why-youre-not-sleeping

    Published: February 2014

3. https://survivalreport.org/basic-human-needs/

    By Mike T - May 4, 2017

PS: The above content is prepared for Toastmasters Level 3 Project 1 under an Innovative Planning path.

Today reader, tomorrow a Leader

Reading... a vacation for the mind.... are you ready to spend 5 minutes to read this article? If yes, we can talk about ‘reading’ in this page. Please check yourselves for the question “how many books or articles you have read in the past 12 months?”  I can ensure that the answer for this question is definitely will rely on smart phones, because the recent research says that, in a day an adult spends more than 2 ½ hours with his/her Smartphone (Charles, 2018). There are arguments that, people are reading and listening more with the help of social media. However, who can ensure that there is any completeness in reading or listening from the social media?

“A reader should imagine what he is reading, understand what is argued in the text he is reading, comprehend the liaison between the thoughts in it, organise them by comparing with what he has accumulated so far, restructure his present knowledge with what he has read, and sort out what he wants to keep in his mind” (Abdulkerim and Remzi, 2015). This is possible only if the reader interprets, evaluates and adopts a critical attitude while he is reading.

The big question for all of us is how to set our mind for reading? The easiest way is, to start reading subjects that are related to our interests.  Every time we decide to read a book, prior to commencing reading, do a simple research about the book. Otherwise, if the book is not interesting, then we will not complete the book. For example, if the book is translated from another language and the art of translation is poor then our interest on reading the book will be lost.  If you are a parent, when you are reading in front of your children, they will also learn from you. It is really important for children to read books. It is tough to teach kids to read books without us setting an example for them. Please make a home library which will motive them to read books.

After reading what can we do? Take a paper and write a brief note about the books you read and publish them on your social networks, which will motivate not only you but also others to read books. There are various advantages in  reading, such as reading develops the mind and reduces stress, reading boosts enhances our memory and our ability to focus, it improves our vocabulary and communication skills etc. Our brain is a muscle and like our body it also needs exercise to stimulate it. In short, reading books is a medicine for a reader.

All of us know that leaders are not only good speakers but also good readers. It means, today’s reader is tomorrow a leader. The some book lovers are quoted their experience on reading as follows “sleep is good, he said, and books are better”, “we read to know we're not alone”, “reading brings us unknown friends”.

References:

Abdulkerim Karadeniza, Remzi Canb (2015). A research on book reading habits and media literacy of students at the faculty of education. Elsevier, 4058-4067

Charles Hymas, (2018). A decade of smartphones: We now spend an entire day every week online [online]. The Telegraph, 02 August, last accessed 02 March 2019 at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/01/decade-smartphones-now-spend-entire-day-every-week-online/

Piotr Kowalczyk (2013). The many benefits of reading (infographic) [online]. Last accessed 04 December 2019 at: https://ebookfriendly.com/benefits-of-reading-infographic/?utm_content=buffer569cc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer

PS: The above content is prepared for Toastmasters Level 1 Project 3 under an Innovative Planning path.