Shakespeare’s sleep... 'Nature’s soft nurse'

Staying young is never going to happen! Staying healthy and living well for a little longer? Maybe! With me having a vested interest, you might say, let’s look at what literature, academia, public health authorities, and the men in white coats say about keeping ourselves healthier, more youthful, and stretching longevity!

Back in the day, “Sleep,” wrote William Shakespeare incredibly accurately in ‘Macbeth,’ “knits the ravelled sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life, bathes sore labour, is the balm of hurt minds, nature’s second course, and the chief nourishment in life’s feast,” emphasising that we must stay active, mentally and physically, for as long as we can, to ensure the rejuvenation of our bodies, to enjoy life to the fullest. He also refers to sleep as “innocent” elsewhere in ‘Macbeth’; in ‘Henry IV’ as “Nature’s soft nurse”; in ‘The Tempest,’ to “life being rounded with sleep”; and in ‘Hamlet,’ he immaculately compares death to sleep, pondering what dreams that may come in death. Obsessed? Maybe. Intrigued? Clearly. Passionate? Poetically. Incontrovertible? No, and yet immensely provocative.

Historically, novelist John Steinbeck wrote, “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” While contemporarily, Jeffrey Kluger, in Time Magazine, wrote of the phenomenon of ‘sleeping on it,’ saying, “Your brain is hard at work all day long — and it doesn’t quit when you’re asleep; it also goes right on solving the problems that plagued you during the day, often coming up with solutions by the time you wake up.”

Prof Luis de Lecea, from the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University, is more scientifically authoritative, being pre-eminent in the field of sleep science, which regulates, or ‘switches on and off,’ appetite, wakefulness, arousal, and our energetic state. His focus is on the brain’s ability to regulate sleep and its loss of muscular control, both being prior anecdotal signs of aging. These, narcolepsy and cataplexy, in the refined context of aging, point to the accumulation of DNA damage, creating stress at cellular, molecular, and protein levels, which proves scientifically that sleep is essential to ‘repair’ us daily, affirming that if we don’t sleep, we age... quicker! Is this sound thinking, supported by research? In 2026 alone, 18,600 scientific and academic publications feature on the topic on Google Scholar. So yes!

Cardiovascular fitness, or how well your body uses oxygen, is apparently the most accurate indicator of how long we will live and how well our bodies will function as we get older, with even modest exercise regimes having significant later-life health benefits. The NHS in the UK places so much emphasis on cardio wellness that anyone between 40 and 75 is eligible for a free ‘mid-life check-up,’ which always concludes with imperatives: sleep, eating, and exercise. I guess that explains the current fad of chair-based exercise regimes. ‘Abs and obliques,’ they scream, ‘for beginners and seniors!’ However, it is true that from the age of 30, we can lose as much as 0.8 per cent of our muscle mass per year, causing instability, so the more active we remain, the better. This doesn’t offer any guarantee of longevity, however.

Perhaps embracing a Mediterranean, fruit and vegetable style diet, with olive oil, nuts, and fish, is the most appropriate healthy diet for today? It will provide the diversity of nutrients essential to health, with a range of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and high-water content that sustain your immune system and metabolism, protecting against heart and vision problems. In addition, their fibre content promotes healthy digestion, regular bowel activity, prevents constipation, and, from the perspective of having ‘eaten enough,’ or ‘feeling full,’ contributes significantly to the ‘feel-good,’ positive psychological factor of successful weight management.

I do like my steaks, chips, chocolate, and ‘lemonade’, but maybe, of all the aforesaid advice and opinions, I should listen to Michael Greger, who warns, “We should all be eating fruit and vegetables as if our lives depend on it – because they do!”