No, I’m not talking about a bride’s wedding night – rather, the importance of a good night’s sleep.
I don’t get them – good nights of sleep, I mean. I am too enthralled with the Internet, with all the jobs and ideas I have floating around in my head, and I stay awake until the wee hours of the morning. Usually I get about five hours of sleep a night – but to feel truly rested, I would need seven hours every night.
I think the most important part of that sentence up there is the last two words: every night.
Articles about good night’s sleep have been done. We all have a general idea of why we should get enough sleep – it affects your weight, your mood, and how your body functions. But just for kicks, I thought I’d trek around the Internets and see what great tidbits I could pull from other articles and gather them here.
- Sleep keeps your heart healthy. I honestly completely didn’t know that. I have some history of heart disease in my family, so my attention is perked, here.
- Naps make you smarter. Oh yeah! I love to nap – and maybe that’s just because I don’t get enough sleep at night. But going out to my car during my lunch hour for a twenty minute snooze is definitely one of my favorite things.
- Sleep deprivation (even in the most modest amounts) can interfere with how efficiently the body regulates the release of cortisol, which plays a significant role in hunger, stress and appetite. Okay, so I’m seriously hoping that getting to bed early and waking early to do some Wii Fit Yoga could drastically help my weight-loss goals.
- Somewhat related to that, studies have found that people who don’t get enough sleep often indulge in excessive sneaking [sic]. Okay, well, that is actually exactly me. I was waiting to finish my soda before I got myself a bowl of ice cream. That’s after constantly eating the M&M’s from a coworker’s desk all day, having a huge lunch and then still eating the chips and candy corn I brought from home, and having a cookie before I even ate supper. It looks like I get shift some blame for that from weak willpower to sleep deficiency. Woohoo!
- Sleep may prevent cancer. Well, I’m honestly skeptical about this one. I mean, really? But hey, I love to sleep. This would be an awesome benefit of one of my favorite activities.
There are so many things that I want to do in my free time that I neglect my health (by getting enough sleep) in order to get things done. That’s no good. Last night I sketched out a “perfect day” plan, and started a list of all the things I really want to do in the two hours between when the kids and DH go to sleep and when I should be going to bed. I’m all up for treating this like one of my son’s activities, to schedule particular activities for particular days, so I don’t try to cram it all in a hodgepodge fashion, but rather give quality time to each activity. (Come to think of it, that’s a good idea for food, too…tsk.)
My absolute favorite tip was to build a creative den. I thought about where I do most of my writing, TV watching, and web surfing – a not-terribly-comfortable-after-two-hours rocker recliner. That’s not a den. I think I would like a separate space in the room just for me. DH has the desktop computer on a makeshift desk, and soon he will get a real desk for the computer. So where will I work? There are no extra rooms for me, and at this point there aren’t even any empty walls. There is a very long, narrow closet…
In Nicki World, there isn’t a lot of cooking going on that doesn’t start from a box. Hamburger Helper is frequently about as far as we extend ourselves. Frozen dinners in bags are my friend.
I read an interesting article today titled, 
There’s sleepy tired, there’s physical exhaustion, and there’s mental exaustion. Currently I believe I’m experiencing all three.
The past couple of days my posts have come easily. I had something to write about, and I didn’t have to think about it much. Wednesday was an entirely different story.
. I like to think about what happens to the characters after the film is over (I do this with books, too). Usually either the film (book) says explicitly how things end, and you are presented with a definitive “happily ever after”, or you receive a vague “happy ending”, where you presume things will be okay because now everyone is on the right track. Of course there are exceptions, but this one wasn’t one. In Sleepwalking I received the vague idea that James would be okay, but I still enjoyed speculating as to what exactly happened. (I won’t spoil it for you.)
is an interesting read. I was warned that it was jerky, but I don’t mind it at all. It’s completely perfect with the way the protagonist’s life is.