After a short hiatus from blogging, I am pleased to announce that I am now MARRIED! The wedding was beautiful, our friends and family had tons of fun, and I couldn't have asked for a better day! This experience has given me plenty to blog about, so listen up!
Most of us skate by on 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. We figure that's enough, right? Plenty of people get even less sleep! If you're one of those people, I'm glad you stumbled on this post. Our sleep patterns affect our lives in more ways than you think. Some of us are so used to minimal sleep that we accept it as the norm for our particular body. This doesn't just cause a higher need for coffee and a groggy morning. A lack of sleep, or even slightly less than a full 8 hours of sleep, can affect your decision-making skills, weaken your immune system, and even increase hunger (all the women scream, "Nooooo!").
If you are one of the many women coping with wedding season at the moment, you should especially heed this advice. A lack of sleep may make you choose the puffy-sleeved, two-toned, mermaid-skirted bridesmaid dresses! Sorry to use scare tactics, but this is a big deal, my friends.
Five Signs you Need More Sleep
1. Even simple decisions throw you for a loop. For example, you've been planning on getting a new laptop for months. You have saved enough money and go online to purchase it, but end up spending 20 minutes trying to decide what color you should get. Blue or black? You start to feel overwhelmed. Should I buy a protective case? Do I want the case that comes with handles? When you're tired, you are less able to distinguish between important and irrelevant information. The sleep-deprived are also riskier gamblers ("Maybe if I wait until the last minute to buy my plane ticket to that interview, the price will go down.")
2. You've been stuffing your face all day, but you still want more food. Studies show that chronic sleep loss can disrupt blood sugar levels and cause the body to produce less leptin, a hormone that curbs appetite, and more ghrelin, a hunger stimulator. On top of that, tired people tend to crave sugar, so you won't be munching tons of salad. You'll end up grabbing the box of donuts.
3. You spend more weeks sick than healthy each month. People who get inadequate sleep are more prone to infections. In one study, researchers injected healthy people with the common cold. Those who slept less than 7 hours per night were 3 times more likely to get sick than those who got at least 8 hours!
4. You've cried during every season finale this week. Less sleep = more emotional. In one study, sleepy volunteers had 60% more activity in their amygdala (fear and anxiety processing center). This part of the brain was also shown to communicate less with the part of the brain in charge of determining appropriate emotional responses. Have you had an argument escalate into a full-blown fight and have no clue how you got there? Look back and think how tired you were that week. In addition, tired brains store more negative memories than positive ones. Over time, this can cause depression-like symptoms. Scary!
5. You have become a klutz. This is pretty self-explanatory. Plenty of studies (and personal experience) show that people who are tired have slower reflexes and less precise motor skills. You can also have momentary (a second or two) blackouts when your body's urge to sleep gets too strong. Sleepiness can even throw off your balance.
Erasing Your Sleep Debt
"Sleep debt," or the cumulative hours of lost sleep, isn't something you can pay off in a night or two. It can take weeks of building up restorative, healing sleep patterns to get your body back where it needs to be. There is no magic formula. Aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night. In the meantime, here are a few ways to suppress the effects of your sleep debt.
- Get some rays. Morning sunlight boosts energy by suppressing the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. A morning walk can also help your body's internal clock sync up with the sun.
- Exercise! We all know exercise has an insane amount of benefits. Aerobic exercise in the early evening will energize you (even if you start while tired) for a couple of hours. Your body temperature naturally drops at night. The natural drop in body temperature that occurs about 2 hours after exercise will signal your body that it's time to go to sleep.
- Take a power nap. Twenty to 30 minutes of sleep midday will help ward off fatigue. Don't sleep more than that or your body will be groggy from reaching a deep sleep. If you want more than 30 minutes, you'll need to stretch your nap to at least an hour and a half to get past the deep sleep stage.
- Work on something interesting. Obviously, people pay more attention to things they find mentally stimulating. Don't give in to the temptation to do something mindless (if you can avoid it).
-Eat for stamina. Big meals and high levels of sugar will cause blood sugar spikes and dips. Instead, eat a small snack or small meals every few hours. Choose foods with complex carbs, some protein, and a small amount of healthy fat. Examples: a handful of nuts or reduced-fat cheese and crackers.
- Caffeine it up. Energy drinks will help, but they'll also cause your calorie count to skyrocket. Try adding honey to some caffeinated tea or adding sugar to your espresso (just order a Cafe Cubano). Instead of one big mug of coffee, drink smaller amounts throughout the day to keep you going.
These tips should help you stay afloat until your body can fully recover from that lack of sleep you always (or never) knew you had. You'd be surprised what just a couple of extra hours can do for your body.
Erasing Your Sleep Debt
"Sleep debt," or the cumulative hours of lost sleep, isn't something you can pay off in a night or two. It can take weeks of building up restorative, healing sleep patterns to get your body back where it needs to be. There is no magic formula. Aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night. In the meantime, here are a few ways to suppress the effects of your sleep debt.
- Get some rays. Morning sunlight boosts energy by suppressing the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. A morning walk can also help your body's internal clock sync up with the sun.
- Exercise! We all know exercise has an insane amount of benefits. Aerobic exercise in the early evening will energize you (even if you start while tired) for a couple of hours. Your body temperature naturally drops at night. The natural drop in body temperature that occurs about 2 hours after exercise will signal your body that it's time to go to sleep.
- Take a power nap. Twenty to 30 minutes of sleep midday will help ward off fatigue. Don't sleep more than that or your body will be groggy from reaching a deep sleep. If you want more than 30 minutes, you'll need to stretch your nap to at least an hour and a half to get past the deep sleep stage.
- Work on something interesting. Obviously, people pay more attention to things they find mentally stimulating. Don't give in to the temptation to do something mindless (if you can avoid it).
-Eat for stamina. Big meals and high levels of sugar will cause blood sugar spikes and dips. Instead, eat a small snack or small meals every few hours. Choose foods with complex carbs, some protein, and a small amount of healthy fat. Examples: a handful of nuts or reduced-fat cheese and crackers.
- Caffeine it up. Energy drinks will help, but they'll also cause your calorie count to skyrocket. Try adding honey to some caffeinated tea or adding sugar to your espresso (just order a Cafe Cubano). Instead of one big mug of coffee, drink smaller amounts throughout the day to keep you going.
These tips should help you stay afloat until your body can fully recover from that lack of sleep you always (or never) knew you had. You'd be surprised what just a couple of extra hours can do for your body.
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