There are many ways to help improve your health like eating healthy food, taking exercise and getting medical help. But the easiest and cheapest way to improve your health is just to sleep eight hours every night. The general sleeping rule is that the younger you are, the longer sleep you need. But regardless of age, some people need to sleep more while for some a few hours is enough.

The problem with sleep is that more people in the world are not sleeping enough. According to the World Health Organization, over half the people in the world maybe sleep-deprived. Having less sleep not only makes people feel tired but also causes accidents. In the United States alone, sleepy drivers cause at least 100,000 traffic accidents a year. Also sleep problems can cause medical problems such as high blood pressure.

Why are so many people sleep-deprived? Part of the reasons may be cultural. In the American culture, people put a higher value on work than on sleep. In fact, people who sleep a lot are usually seen as “lazy”. Also, you can sometime hear some people say proudly that they don’t have much time to sleep, and they only sleep four or five hours a night. It seems that the less you sleep, the more work you’ll do.

How do we teach these people to learn the value of sleep? Perhaps they may listen to the advice of Dr. James Maas, an expert in sleep. He says, “Sleep is like a credit card. When you sleep less, you are only borrowing time. You always have to pay it back. The more hours you don’t sleep, the more hours you should sleep to ‘pay back’ the hours on your ‘sleep credit card’.”

For those who value work more than sleep, they should listen to what a famous person once said, “Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the night. That is a foolish idea which is held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to do more.”

Once upon a time, there was a King who loved growing flowers. As the king became older, he wanted to find someone honest to rule the country. He thought up a good idea. He asked his servants to give every person in the country a flower seed. He said if someone grew him the most beautiful flower, he would be the new king. Everyone in the country then got their own seeds. One young man named David was especially excited, because he has ever grown many beautiful flowers by himself.

David planted his seed and took good care of it every one day.

His flower would not grow, although he tried his best. Finally, it was time for everyone to show their flowers to the king. David took his empty pot to the king. “Your Majesty, I am sorry to say that I cannot grow a flower. But I hope you can see that I tried my best,” he said. The king was satisfied with David’s honesty. Although he did not choose David as the new king, he gave the David a job as judge. He believed that David’s honesty would make him the right person to make sure the fairness in the country.