A few weeks ago I set a personal goal to get one extra hour of sleep per night. When I first undertook this well intended goal I thought it would be simple. Nothing could be further from the truth-in fact, I think these little bitty sixty minutes of sleep is like trying to pack a whole movie into a 60 second movie trailer. Between work, school and life the last couple of weeks have been tremendously difficult for me to do anything well. I have found myself chasing one deadline after another and it seems the harder I try to get ahead the further behind I become. I lack the vocabulary to adequately describe the amount of stress chasing assignments and deadlines produces for me on a daily bases, which in turn robs me of my precious sleep.
When I was younger I would think nothing of getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep and heading out on an adventure or two. As I have aged, I have discovered I do not do so well on 3 hours of sleep. The truth of the matter is that no one can perform to their potential on 3 or 4 hours of sleep for any period of time. This lack of sleep robs us of humor, health and the joys of life that gives us the ability to see things from an advantageous perspective or at least to be able to enjoy our waking hours.
If just feeling better isn’t motivation enough to get more sleep, maybe the University of Chicago research study on sleep will be. The researchers found that just 3 days of poor sleep made their young healthy test subjects 25 percent less sensitive to insulin. The study concluded that this level of insulin resistance is equivalent to carrying 20 to 30 extra pounds of weight; which slows your body’s metabolism down even further. Poor sleep habits have also been associated with high carbohydrate treat and snack consumption. I could write a whole series of columns on the stages of sleep and how they affect your hormones which help the body burn stored fat. But, the bottom line of getting at least 7 hours of sleep is you increase your body’s ability to burn and utilize fat more efficiently.
So, what about my goal for an extra hour of sleep per night? Well, I have a few more weeks of school this semester so I’ll do the best I can. But after that I will make some real life changes with more time built in for life- and the proverbial smelling of the roses. By the sounds of the research we might be able to sleep ourselves thin. Now, I like the sound of that!!!!
Howard Baker, RN BSN
For questions, comments, or suggestions on topics you want to read about please email me at: howard@howardsbaker.com
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