Question-Week ending Sunday 01/05/03:
Please approximate how many hours you sleep soundly each night. Please read the Pre-Poll Commentary before taking this poll.
Pre-Poll Commentary:
In this twelfth and final poll of the Daily Dozen Disciplines, we will discuss how important it is to maintain healthy sleeping habits.
Every human being needs a certain number of hours of sleep each day to revive brain cells and other body systems so they'll continue functioning effectively. Sleep is not a luxury. It is a necessity to staying healthy. Too many people consciously put a low priority on sleeping soundly each night. They engage in other activities rather than make a conscious effort to develop good sleeping habits. Others have a very difficult time falling asleep at night and would love to be able to get a good night's sleep.
Unfortunately we've become a tired and chronically sleep-deprived generation. We live in a fast-paced, high-tech world that operates 24 hours a day. Supermarkets, restaurants, convenience stores and a variety of other businesses and services are accessible 24 hours a day. People such as nurses, waiters and policeman are required to work rotating shifts. More and more people are entrepreneurs who work from home, often following no set work schedule. Television, radio and movie channels broadcast day and night. Sleep patterns are no longer as simple as following the old rule of "early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise."
To have healthy sleeping habits we must make a conscious effort to invest some time to study and research the importance of sleeping healthy each day. Once we understand how important sleep habits are, we must make sleeping soundly a high priority on our to-do list, in order to promote better health and improve the quality of our lives. In our summary section for this poll, we will try to guide you to some websites that deal with the topic of SLEEP.
Let us know in this week's poll how many hours of sound sleep you enjoy each night. This poll will end on Sunday 01/05/03. Watch for the results and summary by Monday morning 01/06/03.
Results:
- 28% answered that they sleep soundly for 6 hours nightly
23% answered that they sleep soundly for 5 hours nightly
20% answered that they sleep soundly for 7 hours nightly
13% answered that they sleep soundly for 8 hours nightly
13% answered that they sleep soundly for 4 hours nightly
03% answered that they sleep soundly for 3 hours nightly
Post-Poll Commentary:
There were no overwhelming answers in this week's poll on sound sleeping. However, we may conclude from our small sampling that too few people are getting the 8 hours of optimum sleep we should shoot for according to researchers.
Everyone is different and has different requirements. But we should not discount the fact that we all need healthy sleep habits. As a matter of fact, during this past week I personally tried to establish one of my old routines of early to bed and early to rise. This poll brought to my consciousness how I have slipped from a healthier routine that I once kept. Hopefully it will do the same for you. We all need to revisit and analyze all of our daily disciplines and what we need to do to stay healthier and happier. We need to think about which habits are excellent, good, fair or poor? Then make improvements. That was the purpose of presenting our polls on the Dozen Daily Disciplines over the past 12 weeks. We hope you have enjoyed and benefited from this series. I have benefited by presenting it to you. We will begin a new series on EFFECTIVE GOAL SETTING AND PLANNING this week.