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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back to part 3 of our Sleep & Your Family series. This is the last episode in this series, and if you’re just joining us, I highly suggest you start with part 1. You absolutely need to fill out the Sleep Survey, and you need to understand what the Bible says about our sleep before today’s material can be beneficial for you.
And if you’re returning, I hope you’ve already been considering what changes you need to make to your sleep schedule in order to better glorify God. In fact, you may have already started making changes. If so, I won’t be surprised if you’re hitting some roadblocks in that process. Lord willing, you may only have small changes to make and found that they have been pretty easy. Either way, today we’re going to talk about how to make changes and what to expect in the process. As always, please take advantage of the free LifeWork, transcript, and links to related resources which you can find in the description. And now, let’s begin. Topic
Any time a person or a family or a church decides they want to glorify God better, they can know for certain that at least one person is not happy with this new direction. Satan is described in Scripture as a roaring lion looking for someone to eat. He doesn’t want you to be successful, and he’s going to fight the process.
In the same way—but to a greater degree—our own sinful hearts are naturally disposed to fighting beneficial change for the glory of God. And we mustn’t forget the difficulty of making new habits. It takes time and effort to break old habits and make new ones. So, we need to be careful and attentive to not be caught unawares. By the way, I’m going to link our Spiritual Warfare in Your Home series if you’re interested in what the Bible has to say about how Satan, the World, and the Flesh are daily trying to derail your family. For now, though, allow me to once again ask you to strongly consider becoming a monthly donor of Truth.Love.Family. We’re trying so hard to glorify God by equipping dads and moms all over the world to be the intentional, disciple-making parents He called and created them to be . . . and that includes you. We’re also trying to set up the whole family for spiritual success by creating family devotionals, books, and offering biblical counseling. But Satan and the World absolutely want to see us close our doors. So, will you please prayerfully consider visiting TruthLoveParent.com/donate to give a tax-deductible gift to this ministry? We hope you will and thank you in advance for your support. Okay, today we need to consider some potential struggles you may have as you try to create new sleep patterns. 1. For Everybody It doesn’t matter who you are or what sleep changes you need to make. You’ll likely encounter the following struggles. A. Increased Temptation Because Satan wants to eat you alive, any time you set out to conform any part of your life to God’s will, you’ll meet increased pressure from Demonic forces, the World, and your sinful Flesh. Don’t be surprised if you’re tempted more than usual, but also remember that God provides a way to escape every single temptation you will ever face. That beautiful promise is found in I Corinthians 10:13. You also need to be prepared to encounter . . . B. Failure Even though you never have to sin, that doesn’t mean that your body will take easily to the new schedule. God created our bodies to fight for equilibrium. This is why drug users form chemical dependency on the poisons they’re putting into their bodies. After awhile, their bodies make the drug a normal part of their lives, and then when they try to stop, the person goes through withdrawal. Some forms of withdrawal can even be fatal. This means that your body has likely already achieved a certain level of equilibrium with your unhealthy sleep habits. Therefore, your body may fight the schedule change, but that doesn’t mean the new patterns aren’t working any more than withdrawal symptoms mean that the addict should start taking drugs again. So, be ready. Both temptations and failure are very real possibilities, but God provides a way to escape sin, strength to do right, forgiveness when we sin, and perseverance through physical weakness. Now, this next set of things for which to watch is . . . 2. For People Trying to Get More Sleep Most people who’re sleep deprived have replaced sleep with chemical dependency, usually in the form of caffeine. This means that your body will have to overcome two unhealthy states of equilibrium: 1. a lack of sleep, and 2. an addiction to caffeine. Talk with your biblical counselor and your doctor about the best ways to decrease your dependence on caffeine. Also remember that if you continue consuming as many energy boosters as you have, your body will not be able to transition to healthy sleep patterns because it’s being artificially kept awake. My friends, please know that caffeine addiction is a very real thing. It’s very likely that people in your family—maybe even you yourself—are actually addicted to caffeine right here and now. Please don’t pretend like it’s not a possibility. It very much is. You may stop drinking caffeine and be absolutely shocked to find how dependent you were on it. On the other hand, it’s also possible your mind—for various other reasons—will have a difficult time “slowing down” while in bed. This may result in lying awake in bed for what feels like an eternity. This may tempt you to think that you’re not tired, but the reality is that your body is exhausted, but your mind has been trained to over-process. There are many tactics for quieting a noisy mind, and your biblical counselor and accountability partners can help you find ones that work for you. But keep in mind that the best course of action is prayer. Consciously talk with God and fall asleep telling Him that you trust Him. You may also be tempted to take chemicals that will cause you to go to sleep. Natural sleep aids taken with careful precision and biblical motivation can be beneficial. Ask your counselor for suggestions. However, many sleep aids can be harmful. Consult your doctor before taking any over the counter sleep aids. Obviously, the best course of action is to train your body how to sleep without—what we’re going to call—“training wheels.” Just don’t allow “failure” to discourage you. Your body will need time to find a new equilibrium. This is why we don’t suggest trying to add hours of sleep to your schedule each night. That will likely end in failure. But slowly adding hours will make it better for your body to achieve a new, healthier equilibrium. But we’ll talk more about this later. 3. For People Trying to Get Less Sleep Most people who’re sleeping too much (who do not have legitimate medical reasons to do so) are going to have a very difficult time reducing the amount of sleep for a couple reasons. First, the body has found an equilibrium that will have to be reprogrammed. Your body is going to try to tell you that you’re not getting enough sleep, but your body needs to go through “withdrawal” before it will be able to achieve a healthier equilibrium. It’s an unfortunate reality. Second, your brain may struggle to function clearly because you will feel tired. This will increase the strength of the Flesh’s temptation to convince you that you need to sleep more. And yes, your body can believe it needs too much sleep just like it can believe that you really do need thirds on dessert or that you’ll die if you don’t take those drugs. Just because you feel tired doesn’t mean you should feel tired. For these reasons you may be tempted to take chemicals that will make you feel more awake. This usually takes the form of caffeine, energy pills, energy drinks, and over the counter supplements. Now, as I mentioned with the previous point, there are healthy, natural supplements that can be used to help your body achieve health and wellness, but the supplements should not be taken in order to artificially wake yourself up. Consult your biblical counselor and your doctor before adding any energy boosters to your regimen. Honestly, most of the time, healthy foods and exercise can give you the boost you need. Another important realization is that you are going to have more time in your day, but will likely not know what to do with all the new time. This can cause a couple problems, A. Instead of doing what you should be doing, you may B. do things you shouldn’t be doing. Substituting too much sleep for binge watching Netflix is not a Christ-honoring course of action. Work with your biblical counselor to find productive, Christ-honoring activities to do with your time. Productively engaging your mind and body may seem difficult at first, but these two habits will actually help you feel less tired over the long run. It’s easy to be exhausted and bored when you have nothing to do, but using energy requires the body to produce more of it to meet the demand. So, don’t allow perceived failure to discourage you. Your body will need time to find a new equilibrium. This is why we don’t suggest trying to remove hours of sleep from your schedule each night. Just like with adding too much sleep all at once, removing to many hours will likely end in failure. But slowly removing time will make it better for your body to achieve a new, healthier equilibrium. Okay, so now we’re going to transition to the section marked Day 5 on your LifeWork. What follows is your personal plan to achieve more Christ-honoring sleep patterns. What you’re going to do is fill in the left side with your target sleep and wake times. When you lie down to sleep and when you wake up, notate the time on the “Actual” line. Now, before we go any further, you really need to have an accurate picture of your weekly sleep patterns. If you weren’t careful to have a realistic understanding of your actual sleep, you won’t be able to add or subtract the right amounts. You may need to take a week to track your actual sleep to be sure. Anyway, if you need to sleep more, plan to go to sleep 1 hour earlier than you did the week before. And if you need to sleep less, plan to wake up at least 30 minutes earlier than you did the week before. Please don’t add or subtract any more time than what I just suggested. We want you to be successful. We don’t want you to unnecessarily fail. Now, your counselor and accountability partners may suggest different target times, so pay close attention to their suggestions and be willing to try whatever they suggest. Remember, this will be difficult. Breaking bad habits always is, but it’s valuable to recognize that we can’t do this in our own power, and we must rely entirely on God. Now, let’s say that you were successful this week. You were able to modify your sleep to match your goals. That’s great, but it’s very likely you’re still not where you need to be. Therefore, you’re going to full out a new sleep plan for the next week. You should keep doing this until one of two things happen. First, if the new plan just isn’t working, don’t add or subtract more time the next week. Continue working the failed plan until your body gets used to it. When you have a successful week or two, then try to add or subtract more. But even if it seems your body is used to the new plan, and you’re officially getting all of the hours you, your doctor, and your biblical counselor believe you should, please realize you need to be intentional at this stage. They say it takes at least 1 to 2 months to truly create a new habit. One week of valuable sleep is a wonderful thing to celebrate, but you’re still in the fighting stage. Continue to work your final sleep plan until it’s habit. But also be willing to tweak the plan as you encounter legitimate reasons that your sleep plan may need to be updated to glorify God. I can’t tell you how many times in my life my sleep plan had to change because of jobs, age, children, school, and so many other factors. Conclusion
Once again, I’m going to strongly encourage you to reach out to [email protected] so that you can work with a trained, professional biblical counselor who has helped many other people just like you sleep to the glory of God.
It’s the same for every area in our lives where we need to grow. We need accountability. We need disciplers. We need help. So, I hope you’ll biblically scrutinize your sleep patterns and the motivations behind them and then work toward a more physically and spiritually healthy relationship with sleep. You may have sins to confess and turn from. That—in an of itself—is a huge task with which you will probably need loving, truth-speaking help. You will likely have hurdles as your body finds a new equilibrium. And all of this is normal; it’s all beneficial if we’re pursuing God’s glory. I know this episode is shorter than the others, but I really want you to spend time right now creating what you believe is a sleep plan that will help you work toward genuinely healthy sleep. And don’t forget to have your parents or spouse involved in the process so they can help. And—of course, you can email us at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (828) 423-0894 if you’d like our assistance. And then share this series with other families who want to please the Lord with their sleep, and join us next time as we pull waaaaaayyyy out and consider “God’s Plan for Your Family.” We’re going to take three episodes to consider truths from the book of Colossians that will help us know what we shouldn’t be doing, what we should be doing, and—most importantly—what we must be. I’ll see you then!
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