However, the meaning of this idiom is easy to understand when you dive into the origin of the phrase. In short, this saying is logically derived and not far-fetched at all.Īn idiom that probably makes you scratch your head is: 'Let sleeping dogs lie'. Headaches and many other ailments are often gone the next morning.

When you already feel sick or exhausted, you should especially take this as a warning sign from your body and allow it to rest and get enough sleep. As a result, our immune system is weakened, and we feel drained. When we do not get enough sleep, it robs us of important energy. Sleep is hugely important for our health. As we all know, grandma's advice is often the best, and that is true in this case too, because there is definitely some truth to it. Your grandparents probably said this phrase to you many times. 3 – Sleep is the best medicineĪ cold is on the horizon? Then perhaps the advice 'sleep is the best medicine' comes to mind. No matter the outcome of your decision, you will feel better when you do not have to give a hasty answer. The next time you are asked to make an important decision, take a night to sleep on it. And if you have changed your mind, the time you took to decide helped you consider the matter in more detail. If you still have the same feeling about the matter the next morning, you are confirmed in your decision. By sleeping on it, you get some distance to the matter and are able to make a decision that will consider more than one side. As you can see, “to sleep on it” means to think about something before deciding about the matter.

It is in fact a smart idea to think about a decision, so that it will not be a gut decision but a thought through one. “I will sleep on it” – you have probably used this idiom when you had to make an important decision and did not want to make it in a hurry. That is the reason why we use this idiom to describe good sleep. Therefore, a baby’s sleep stands for untroubled and peaceful rest. So why does this phrase describe good sleep? The explanation is simple: when babies are sleeping, they do so peacefully because they have no worries to wake up to, whereas a grown up may subconsciously think about a problem und thus have a restless sleep. But, as most people know, babies wake up multiple times a night and usually cry when they do. “To sleep like a baby” is used to describe that a person will sleep exceptionally well, peacefully, and undisturbed. Any person who has had a newborn baby will understand the absurdity of this idiom. Let’s start this list with an idiom filled with irony.

Let sleeping dogs lie meaning