« Tips for Staying in Shape When You Lead a Busy Career/Life | Main | Job Seekers – Beware Your Use of Social Networking and Use it Wisely »
Are You A Sleepyhead? How Getting More Sleep Can Positively Affect Your Health
August 19, 2009
After reading several articles about how most people don’t get enough sleep and the correlation between sleep habits and overall health, I decided to analyze my own sleeping habits to determine how much sleep I was getting. Much to my chagrin, I realized that during the work week I was averaging only about six hours of sleep a night.
According to a recent article by Dr. Ranit Mishori, most adults should get seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Dr. Mishori also cautions that research now shows “lack of sleep has been linked to obesity, cancer, heart disease, and low immune response.” Uh oh. That’s when I decided it was time I gave myself a sleep make-over. Do you need a sleep make-over also?
Here are some important reasons to take a hard look at your sleep habits. The article by Dr. Mishori highlights several key findings about the connection of sleep habits and health:
- Catching a cold: “A recent study in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine showed that if you sleep less than seven hours a night, you have a three times higher risk of getting a cold than if you sleep more than eight hours.”
- Heart health: “The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a study showing that people in their 30s and 40s who get less sleep are more likely to develop plaque in the arteries of their hearts early in life.”
- Obesity: “In an article published in Sleep, the team concluded that every lost hour of sleep is associated with a discrete increase in BMI (body mass index, the formula that calculates how overweight you are based on your weight and height).”
As I analyzed my sleep habits, I found that during the work week I wasn’t getting enough sleep but that I had been trying to make up for it on the weekends. However, this was throwing off my internal body clock because I was used to going to bed later and getting up much earlier during the week. Step one of my sleep make-over became trying to adjust my sleep habits during the week by attempting to go to bed an hour earlier each night.
Once that became a habit, I went to step two, which was trying to adjust my weekend sleep habits to be more in sync with what time I went to bed and got up during the week. Happily, these changes have helped me increase my energy levels during the day and I’ve also noticed that it’s decreased how often I get sick. All from a little change of getting more sleep every night. Amazing! Try it for yourself and see if it also works.
~ Lisa Quast
Source: http://www.parade.com/health/2009/06/healing-power-of-sleep.html
Topics: Create Work/Life Balance | 1 Comment »
One Response to “Are You A Sleepyhead? How Getting More Sleep Can Positively Affect Your Health”
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Entries (RSS)
August 25th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Oh, the sleep issue…this is one I struggle with every single day. As a professional working mother (of 4), it is SO hard to go to sleep early and at the same time every night. No matter how tired I am after the kids have been put to sleep, I can’t deny myself of some “me” time, especially “blogging” time, which is one of the things I enjoy the most. Why can’t they make a pill that makes us feel refreshed and rested? Angelica Perez, http://www.ButterflybyDay.com.