Getting Enough Proper Sleep?

Got proper sleep? Are you sure?

So, we do a 180 degree flip on our diets. We begin to take fiber seriously and now we aim for the perfect meal in the morning, afternoon and evening. Oh, and don't forget, two mid day snacks to keep the body from thinking it's starving and then we hear about SLEEP and the importance of re-generating our cellular level via proper sleep? Oh, and keep your boss happy with 10 hour days followed up by the never ending drag on the blackberry hooked to your hip? Well in a nutshell, YES! All of these things play a vital role in overall health and fitness. Now let's tackle sleep behavior.

We all buy off on the above and you know you've got to eat more greens and hit the gym. But did you know that hugging your pillow just a little longer each night/morning also does you good? No new discovery that proper sleep makes us feel better, in the past several years medical research has shown that deep sleep has a much bigger impact on our overall health and fitness than just keeping away those under-eye bags. But don't tell Hollywood this! The dilema in todays world, smack dab in the middle of our hectic, workaholic lives, getting enough rest tends to be a very low priority.

So, are You Getting Enough Sleep? Study show in fact, published in the journal SLEEP confirms that time spent punching the clock has the biggest effect on how much a person sleeps. The more hours a person works, the less sleep he or she gets, says Dr. Mathias Basner, a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the study. The obvious irony here is that the less sleep you get, the worse you're bound to perform at work. Tell that to your boss and HR management team!

Beyond overall impact to our work, most people don't realize what insufficient sleep can do to their overall health and wellness. During the various stages of sleep, a lot more is happening than we the average person is aware of. Our blood pressure drops, blood supply to our relaxed muscles increases, tissue growth and repair occurs and our energy levels are restored, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

If you have a sleep disorder or you're just not making sleep a priority, you're at a greater risk for cardiovascular disease and hypertension. So, relax and sleep in or get to bed earlier in the evening and stay off the high-thrill seeking murder mysteries that scare the daylights out of you for your upcoming hug with your pillow!

A Novel Idea

A good book will provide you with enrichment and possibly adventure. The mind will slowly reduce your reading capability so that your eyes get the signal and eventually the book is set aside for a nice long nap till morning. You know you have arrived when you wake up and the book is on your chest or to your side. Thus you really relaxed and fell asleep in mid page. Tough to get your proper page marked but a great start to a restful sleep.

Did The Caveman Get It Right?

We sleep in a house of course. We sleep in homes with modern gadgets all plugged in. All radiating some level of heat and noise electronically. Does this effect our sleep patterns? We went on a search and found that those that slept in complete darkness appeared to have a more restful sleep and those that had blinking lights or watched TV in their bedroom late at night were restless and tended to become ill more often. Here are the research studies to browse:

Shift Workers sleep better in a dark room

Avoid Breast Cancer: Sleep in the dark

The Better Sleep Council