Take for instance this week, you give up drinking fluids Monday through Friday except for occasional sips throughout the day. Then, on Saturday, you drink five gallons of water to catch up. After you are feeling sick, then, you wake up Sunday, and you drink five gallons of water again. What if you apply that same logic to eating? How about exercise? Be a couch potato for five days, and on Saturday, you work out for twelve hours trying to make up for your laziness during the week. Assuming you can move the next day, you work out for twelve hours again.
Now, we don't do this with our nutrition and movement during the week which are essential for our biology, so why do we treat sleep, which is the third essential key, with such disregard? We live in a society where we are always on the go, staying up late and rising early, finding ourselves tired throughout the day and oversleeping on days off because of our sleep debt. However, we need to take control of our lives and focus on getting sufficient and consistent sleep.
In order to achieve this, there are many practices to follow:
- practice good Sleep Hygiene
- try to follow a three-five step night ritual (brushing teeth, etc. so your body knows to sleep upon completion
- use white noise in the background, something with a constant, boring noise, to drown out distracting noises
It is important to remember that sleep is different for everyone, and we each need differing hours of sleep to be at our best. Here is my challenge to everyone, including myself, to discover the right amount of sleep. Wake up at the same time everyday for a week, whether that be 6 a.m. or noon. By helping to reset our circadian rhythms, our bodies will tell us come nighttime when we need to sleep.
WHERE did you get this cool image?! Love it!
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