Sleep and the Stoics

Recently, I became quite fascinated by some of the writings of the Stoics.

One of them in particular, Marcus Aurelius, you probably may have read one of his books, or you would have at least heard some of the sayings, some of the writings that he has. And he talks a lot about Sleep, believe it or not,

One of the things that he talks about is the importance of sleep.

In one of this writings he says, "You were right in your rise in the morning. Think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love".

Now that may not sound too much like a stoic type of philosophy that you might be used to, but that is part of the whole essence of life.

And scientifically, he's 100 percent true. Sleep is a restorative process and that's what we all need, whether we like it or not. For me it took a long time to appreciate this. An even with the scientific knowledge of how important sleep is, I still struggle at times in wanting to sleep.

In addition to the sleep itself he says, when we get up every day, to think of the privilege that we have of being able to get up, to be able to love, to be able to enjoy life and enjoy people.

So, today, or tomorrow when you get up, or even today as you're going through your day, Do you think of it as a privilege or is it something you have to drag yourself through?

No matter where things are at, no matter what's happening, how do you view the rest of your day starting now?

Got 57 seconds to take a quick overall wellbeing quiz? This could be very enlightening...

Click here to take the quiz