healthy habits: rest well to work well

Shari Smothers — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:30:26 +0000

This is the 5th post from the healthy habits series.

You can’t Put Sleep Off Safely

It’s not because your brain turns off. Quite the contrary, in fact. Many people claim to need 3 or 4 hours of sleep and they’re fine. And, while they may actually be able to function, they are putting their bodies at risk by obstructing some very important activities. During sleep, your conscious mind shuts off and your unconscious mind gets busy. Your unconscious mind does some pretty amazing things physically and mentally.

Physical Regeneration

The health benefits of sleep should entice you to get the rest you need. Your body heals at an accelerated rate with the natural production of a proteins that help to repair the body. Proper sleep allows your body time to get rejuvenated from regular activities of life, as well as extra exertions.

Mental Regeneration

There is much that remains unknown about the way the brain works. What is known is quite interesting. When you dream, your brain actually works through events and problems. You may not recall the dream the next day. However, it may happen is that you discover you have a solution to a problem, answer to a question that had eluded you the day or days before.

What is Proper Sleep?

No, it’s not an official term. It speaks to what I’ve found to be optimal conditions for sleep for me. Say you’re tired, it’s been a long day. No way you won’t sleep. I’ve had nights when I know that I was asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. But it takes more than a full day, tiredness, or even exhaustion to get your best sleep. To get the full benefit of sleep, it helps to get enough hours and be in a good sleep environment.

Enough Hours

You can push yourself relentlessly, trying to make everything happen when you insist. It probably won’t work: you could likely put everything and more in jeopardy. And you still won’t have your work done.

I tried to push myself to work until the wee hours of the morning, during the weekdays. Then on the weekends, I would sleep for most of the day. People call this make up sleep or some such thing. In the short-run, it works—kind of, temporarily. But, there are long-term dangers, including permanently disrupting your sleep pattern. You can see how that would interrupt all the other beneficial things that sleep does, right?

I can. And actually I did see first hand. I once met a lady who was hospitalized for hallucinations and odd behavior. The cause of her problems was prolonged sleep deprivation. Once you can’t control your sleep patterns, the problems can snowball quickly. At the time of being hospitalized, this lady’s sleep deprivation was about a week and it was a matter of not enough hours, not zero hours of sleep.

Find out how much sleep is optimal for you, and try to stick with that as often as possible. You can look it up and see what the accepted standards are. Then experiment to learn what works best for you.

Good Sleep Environment

There are things you can do while you’re awake, to improve your sleep time. Exercise and nourishment are very important to having good sleep. Here are some more things you can do to enhance your sleep environment.

Sleep in a dark, cool, quiet room. Other environments may cause you to wake in the night, or to sleep fitfully.
Sleep at night, when you’re naturally inclined to. Unless you work over night regularly, you want to sleep when your body’s internal clock dictates.
Sleep on a firm bed with good pillows. Firmness will support your back and spine, reducing the chance of soreness.
Sleep on clean, allergen-free bedclothes.
Try to only rest in your bedroom. By keeping your work in another area, you are conditioning your mind to go into relaxation mode when you enter your bedroom.
Put away your worries and stresses of the day. I add this especially for any who suffer from anxiety attacks like myself. Try meditation to calm your racing thoughts and put them aside until after you sleep.

Benefits of Getting Enough Sleep

So what are the benefits of sleep? We have deadlines to meet, titles to work out, topics to research, perspectives that we need to decide on, just to get started. There’s a better alternative to forging straight through: SLEEP when you’re supposed to. Take a look at some of the benefits of sleep:

Improved memory
Improved alertness
Improved creativity
Clear thought processes
More energy
Improved social experiences
Better digestion
Better work sessions
Greater resistance to getting sick
Less stress in difficult situations

It’s a fact that you can work through your day, better, when you’re rested. You’ll be alert to new ideas, making almost intuitive connections. And, really, it’s nice when you wake and have solutions and new, creative ideas. Now, isn’t that worth turning off the computer and putting away the puzzles of the day?

Try to get the sleep you need on a regular basis. Reschedule your tasks to fit your work into a work day. Make yourself content with accomplishing all you can in your work day; this will go a long way to preparing for sleep.

If you’re a skeptic, like I was, try it for yourself. Take one or two weeks off from pushing yourself to the limit. Get good sleep and see what changes for you. Please share it in a comment below. Or if it’s long, post it on your blog and leave the post link in a comment below. I’d love to read your story.

Further reading:

Sleeping Well: What You Need to Know
How to Get Better Sleep by Diana Rodriguez
While You Sleep, Your Brain Keeps Working

Related posts:

blog about it» importance of sleep