One of my favorite "maybe it's true, maybe it's not" nuggets from history is how some people thought coffee would make sleeping a purely recreational activity. The story sounds a little crazy now, several hundred years later, but I think there is a certain logic to the thinking. If sleep restores energy and coffee restores energy, why wouldn't one substitute for the other? Who needs sleep when another caffeine hit will keep the good times rolling, right?
Unfortunately, sleep does more than just restore energy. So although coffee is an effective energy source, it only replaces one part of a larger set of sleep's benefits. At this point, the initial logic (just like the coffee-dependent body) breaks down.
The story reminds me of how some advocate eating several small meals per day as a weight loss strategy. This approach is based on another bit of simple logic. Since the metabolism burns calories if it is running and constantly eating keeps the metabolism running, why wouldn't keeping the metabolism constantly running lead to eventual weight loss? Who has ever seen a burning furnace accumulate wood, right?
A few years ago, I heard this line of thinking and thought it made sense. The key was to have digestible food in the stomach at all times because doing otherwise would lead to periods of slow metabolism. The best way to apply the solution was a constant stream of small meals keeping the metabolism rolling along. It sounds almost too good to be true: take exactly what you eat now, cut each meal in two, double the number of meals, and watch the pounds melt away.
The problem with the logic is similar to the coffee example. Hunger, I suspect, does more than just slow the metabolism. So although constant eating prevents the metabolism from slowing down, it also reverses the other positive processes the body goes through while hungry.
Or, at least, this is an idea. Based on what I've learned so far, no one seems to know for sure what the benefits of a hungry period are. In this uncertain area, I'm willing to bet the benefits of hungry periods outweigh the benefits of keeping the metabolism running nonstop. It would align with the way a number of the body's other systems benefit from periods of discomfort or stress. My muscles, for example, grow when I strength train and my bones get stronger from the impact of walking. The cardiovascular system benefits each time vigorous exercise elevates my heartbeat.
Could the digestive system be an exception? Of course it could. I'm no expert in this area and I have my eyes open for new information. Just as I did in discarding my 'small meals' eating plan, I might also scrap my current pattern involving occasional twenty-four hour fasting. If you have this information in hand, reader, let me know and I'll get right on it.
But I can't shake the thought of how machines left running all the time eventually wear down. Their demise, in some cases, is spectacular. And what about all those religions incorporating fasting into their belief systems? Surely, we would have observed something in the collective health of these people if controlled fasting was such a bad idea. A little bit of hunger, I think, must lead to some form of benefit somewhere in the vastly complex system of my human body.
But again, that's just an idea. My logic is sound, just like the logic of that first coffee drinker, his mind wired by the caffeine jolt, reveling in the vision of a future without the wasted hours of sleep...
