Eat your breakfast kids, and you too mom and dad!

This is not based on fact, it just seemed to make sense to me, so I did enough research to explain it, and generally justify my educated guess.




    When we are sleeping, we may be at rest, but our bodies kick it into overdrive to repair, manage and set our bodies back to a state of homeostasis, or in other words, balance.  A day's worth of experience is enough to exhaust a body to the point of sleep being a necessity to come back together.  I've always thought by the end of a hard day that I've used all myself up, my energy was depleted and now I need to build it up again.  But as I was reading Sapolsky's "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers", I came across a section where he discussed the hormones Epinephrine (Adrenalin), Norepinephrine (noradrenalin, "the messengers"), and Glucocorticoids.  These are of the primary hormones of the body that regulate our autonomic nervous system, the epinephrine playing the sympathetic system, and glucocorticoids with the parasympathetic system.  These are very heavy on the body, and I recommend reading this book if you want to understand the significant health risks they can give us.  But for now, I find it sufficient to to quote an analogy he gives in his book.


    "It is with prolonged stress that one enters the third stage, which [is acceptably] termed "exhaustion", where stress-related diseases emerge.  [It was once] believed that one becomes sick at that point because stores of the hormones secreted during the stress response are depleted.  Like an army that runs out of bullets, suddenly we have no defenses left against the threatening stressor.
    It is very rare, however, as we will see, that any of the crucial hormones are actually depleted during even the most sustained of stressors.  The army does not run out of bullets.  Instead, spending so much on the bullets causes the rest of the body's economy to collapse.  It is not so much that the stress-response runs out; rather, with sufficient activation, the stress-response itself can become damaging.  This is a critical concept, because it underlies the emergence of much stress-related disease."

    As we understand from this, rest becomes a crucial factor in returning the body to it's homeostatic state.    Especially in today's world, where stress levels are shooting through the roof.  So we sleep.  Ah, the peace and rest.  But little do you know (or you do know), that as your mind goes, your body kicks into gear.  Your heart rate, and breathing slow down, but your immune system goes on a vigilant night watch, you kidney and liver sift detrimental molecules, and your digestive system goes into overdrive absorbing every beneficial bit of your last meal to power the whole thing.  It's a lot of work, enough to cause a 160 pound person to lose about 500-600 calories, all through your body alone.
    So you wake up after a healthy 7-8 hours of sleep and you're hungry (or not), but you don't have time to eat, because you're late for school, or for work, or you have just got better things to do.  So you don't eat for a few, maybe several hours.  Where is your energy coming from?!  Reserve.  Which is alright, considering that's what it is there for.  But to your body, it reacts as if it is an emergency.  The process of taking your reserves is there specifically for survival purposes, and after enough late nights, and no breakfasts, your body loses it's capability to provide bullets to your army, and you get all sorts of diseases and problems all coming because you never found it important to have a bowl of Kelloggs for breakfast.
    I understand it may seem I'm being a bit radical, but in reality I'm not.  The point I'm trying to make, is that we need our bodies to be running at optimum level so that we can stock the reserves to handle those little emergencies we come across daily.  If not, there are countless health risks being taken I believe we take for granted given the health statistics of our country.  We need to make a stronger effort to live healthier, eat healthier, think healthier, and act healthier.

   As my wise mother would always tell me,

"You don't do it because you want to, you do it because you have to." 

                                                Sleep 7-8 hours, exercise, eat, learn things, meditate, release stress, eat, be happy and positive, don't allow your thoughts to stress you to death, eat, live in gratitude, avoiding poisons like lust, grudges and pride, and finally EAT.  

   I do understand that there are also health factors that have to be taken into account, but don't let that stop you from doing everything that you can.  Things may seem inconvenient or pointless now, but down the road when your body starts shutting down too early in this world of no mercy, all your body can do is tell you "I told you so".