You Need Sleep!

Sleep is an important resource that keeps you healthy, mentally sharp, and able to cope with stress more effectively. Unfortunately most stressed and busy people tend to get less sleep than they need. Ongoing sleep deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic health problems. It can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and get along with others. Sleep helps your brain work properly. While you're sleeping, your brain is preparing for the next day. Here are some of the reasons why stress and sleep deprivation seem to go together, and important techniques for getting the sleep you need.

Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. It helps in healing and repairing your heart and blood vessels. Chronic sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. 

Lack of sleep also increases the risk of obesity. Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). When you don't get enough sleep, your level of ghrelin goes up and your level of leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier than when you're well-rested.

Sleep also affects how your body reacts to insulin, the hormone that controls your blood glucose (sugar) level. Sleep deficiency results in a higher than normal blood sugar level, which may increase your risk for diabetes.

The following are all reasons that contribute to your lack of sleep:

Overthinking
Many people take their work home with them, either physically or metaphorically. We are very busy today, so this makes sense.  Stay-at-home parents and students feel this as well.  Solving problems at the end of the day, leaving you with thoughts that won’t go away, can make sleep come much more difficult.  It can even disrupt the sleep transitions you need to make in the middle of the night.

Caffeine
People under stress tend to consume significant amounts of caffeine to get a boost that gets them going in the morning or helps them make it through the day. Caffeine can actually exacerbate stress levels and significantly affect the amount and quality of sleep you get.

Cortisol
This stress hormone is one of the main hormones responsible for the fight or flight response -- that jolt of energy you get when you feel stressed or threatened that enables you to respond. Unfortunately, chronic stress can lead to excessive levels of cortisol, and this can disrupt healthy sleep patterns.

Overscheduling
A hectic, busy life can take away the time you would have to sleep. If you find yourself pushing your bed time back further and further to get things done, or getting up earlier and earlier in the name of productivity, you may feel tired a lot of the time but not realize the toll lack of sleep is taking. (When you do go to bed, lights/TV off)

Anxiety
Like overthinking, anxiety can make sleep difficult and wake you up at night. Anxiety keeps your mind busy worrying about what happens next. You may become preoccupied with finding solutions. These racing thoughts will deprive you of sleep by keeping your cortisol levels high, making sleep harder to achieve.

Get the Sleep You Need

Try these tips if you find yourself regularly short on sleep:

• Healthy nighttime habits can go a long way toward helping you consistently get more high-quality sleep. Set a bedtime.
• Learn progressive muscle relaxation and deep muscle relaxation techniques. Such as Auto-genic training.  Meditation can also relax your body and quiet your mind -- it can easily transition you into sleep.
• A favorite way for many people to relax before bed--one you may have already thought of--is sexual activity. It can give you a dose of relaxing hormones and provide several other stress management benefits. Unfortunately, many people find that stress zaps their sex drive.
•  Don’t underestimate the value of a short nap. Napping can increase your productivity and give you a valuable dose of sleep when you need it however it is not a solution or a substitution for good nighttime habits.