The Benefits of Sleep: A Spiritual Discipline Worth Pursuing

Have you ever thought at length about sleep? For several hours every day, we sleep and unplug from the world around us. We might drift into dreams, nightmares, or a restless sleep, and all the while the world carries on without us. There are many benefits of sleep, and sleep shouldn’t be something you treat as an optional extra or an inconvenience. It’s one of the Lord’s many blessings that helps us maintain our well-being.

Our Culture and Sleep

One of the things that most fitness apps and devices have is sleep monitoring. There’s a growing awareness that sleep is a significant part of a person’s health. That is often at odds with other aspects of our culture. Often, exhaustion is quietly glorified as packed schedules are seen as a sign of productivity. Admitting that you need more sleep can sometimes be read as a sign of weakness or a sign that you can’t keep up with the rest of the world.

For Christians, there’s an additional layer to all of this. Misreading the call to work diligently as unto the Lord can result in feeling like taking time to rest is self-indulgent or a failure of good stewardship. Yes, laziness is a reality, and Scripture warns us about it. For instance:

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. – Proverbs 24:33-34, NIV

The threat of poverty hanging over you on account of a little slumber could be enough to jolt you into constant activity, hustling daily, and staying on the grind ceaselessly. The warnings in Proverbs need to be understood in their context, as well as in the broader context of Scripture. Rest is considered a gift and a necessary part of faithful existence. The warning from Proverbs is part but not the whole of the story.

The rest of the story includes the reality of sabbath rest being woven into creation itself (Genesis 2:1-3), and taking time away from our labors was a command given to God’s people (Exodus 16; 20:8-11) patterned after God’s own ways of doing things. Even the land that people worked was supposed to be given a year of rest (Exodus 23:10-11). The Psalmist declares that:

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for he grants sleep to those he loves – Psalm 127:2, NIV

Rest is not the same as laziness. More often than not, Scripture looks upon rest and sleep as a quietly defiant trust in a God who doesn’t slumber and is trustworthy. You can rest while resting assured that the One who holds it all together is keeping you safe and restoring you all at the same time.

Ways We Can Sabotage Our Sleep

There are some bad habits and unhelpful ideas regarding sleep that can end up sabotaging it. It’s helpful to identify the misconceptions or myths about sleep that can keep you stuck or make it harder for you to get your rest. Getting your mindset right about sleep will better position you to take hold of its benefits.

One mistake we can make is to minimize the role sleep plays in our lives. The seven to nine hours that sleep takes up each day are not dead space or unproductive time. Far from being a passive thing, sleep is one of the most metabolically active periods of the day. While you sleep, your body is doing some important work, including your brain consolidating memories, clearing out cellular waste products, and repairing tissue.

Another myth is the idea that you can stay busy during the week, and you can simply catch up on your sleep over the weekend. When you have a chronic sleep debt, that’s not something you can remedy in just two days. Sleeping in over the weekend certainly helps, but there is a physiological and cognitive cost to disrupted sleep. That cost accumulates in ways that a few extra hours of sleep can’t remedy. You need consistent sleep for that to happen.

You might also sabotage your sleep by not giving yourself adequate time for it. Not only is it important to get downtime before you actually sleep, but you then need to have enough hours of sleep each night. Some people can function well on less sleep, but that’s not most of us.

Most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep so that they don’t wake up feeling groggy and can function at their best. Poor sleep hygiene can often result in getting irritable more quickly and not thinking clearly.

Simply getting to sleep on time can be a huge challenge. Whether it’s procrastination, getting caught up watching your favorite series, attending to your children or your chores, doomscrolling, or simply being restless thinking about the next day, it can be difficult to get to bed on time. If you don’t allow yourself enough downtime before bed, falling asleep with enough time to give you a full night’s rest might not happen.

The Benefits of Sleep

What does sleep actually do for you? One of the major ways you can motivate yourself to make changes that will help your sleep is to understand what the benefits of great sleep are. The changes that you may need to make can seem inconvenient, but the benefits you reap from good sleep make it more than worth it.

Some of the main benefits of sleep include:

Emotional regulation When you don’t sleep well, you may find yourself struggling to regulate your emotions as effectively as you do when you’re well rested. When you’ve slept well, you’re better able to respond patiently to conflict, you can manage your frustrations a bit easier, and you can face difficulty more optimistically.

Sleep helps a person address concerns such as irritability, a persistent low mood, or emotional reactivity. When you’re sleeping well, you’re in a much better position to face these challenges. You may notice that you are more patient, quick to listen, and slow to anger.

Physical well-being When you’re sleep-deprived, you’re at an increased risk for depression, anxiety, weight gain, and several chronic health conditions. Getting good sleep isn’t a cure-all for ailments, but it supports hormonal balance, better immune function, cardiovascular health, and your body’s ability to manage inflammation.

Spiritual wellness There are so many things to be anxious about as we go about our lives. We worry about work, our children, the state of our world, our health, and so much else. Going to sleep can be seen and practiced as a discipline. Hustle culture says that going to sleep can seem like a waste of time, but it can be a counter-cultural form of trust when we choose rest over productivity.

Going to sleep when it feels like the world is falling apart can be a huge step of faith. Not only is resting a good idea to help us gain perspective on things, but it can rightly be seen as an embodied acknowledgment that the Lord is God and we are not. The world doesn’t depend on our constant activity or vigilance. Rather, the Lord is the one who sustains all things, and He does not sleep (Psalms 121:1-8; Hebrews 1:3).

Getting a full night’s rest consistently can help to promote your well-being, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. What seems like a pointless surrender to inactivity for a few hours out of every day is actually one of the Lord’s greatest gifts to us. His invitation for us to rest, not only spiritually by resting in His perfect work through Jesus, but also physically by ceasing our labors, can help restore much-needed balance and wellness.

Next Steps to Get Great Sleep

When you want to make changes that last, the way to do that isn’t necessarily by making huge and dramatic overhauls. Making small but impactful changes and then sticking to them can make all the difference. Some places where you can start include the following:

Set a wake time Being consistent in when you wake up can make a significant difference in regulating your body’s clock. Choose a time when you’ll wake up and then stick to that for a couple of weeks before you move on to adjust other things.

Have a wind-down ritual For example, a forty-five-minute wind-down ritual can help if you find it hard to settle your mind before bed. This time is to allow your brain the time it needs to transition from the day’s activities toward the quiet of sleep. Your ritual could include dimming lights, stretching, praying and reading Scripture, or listening to gentle music. It’s best to put down your screens at this time.

Make your bedroom a place for sleep Your bedroom isn’t a multipurpose room, so if possible, avoid working or watching emotionally intense content there. The point is to create the association between your bedroom and rest, so when you’re in the room, you start to transition toward sleep much more easily.

Limit caffeine An afternoon coffee can still be active in your system around bedtime, so it’s important to cut yourself off about five to six hours before bedtime. Limiting energy drinks can also help your sleep.

Getting good sleep benefits you in many ways. Sleep can rightly be seen as a spiritual discipline, a way to surrender ourselves to God in a tangible way that also promotes our well-being. Struggling to sleep can be a symptom of depression, anxiety, or grief. If you find yourself experiencing sleep difficulties despite having good sleep habits, speak with a doctor or a counselor.

If you’re struggling with getting good sleep, you can reach out to our office to connect with a Christian counselor in Alamo Ranch, Texas, who can help you process some potential causes of sleeplessness.