Sleep, who needs it?

As usual, I am tired.  The farm has kept me quite busy, with the drama and heartwrench and tremendous joy that only children and farming can bring.  Last night, Hopper Spark and Remington cuddled baby Nathan and gave me five straight hours of sleep between feedings after he ran hard to keep up with my farm chores yesterday.  Thanks so much to my goofy dogs!

As I sit here at the craft store today, cleaning out some of my files and updating quickbooks during a very slow day in the store, I finished an article on sleep and health for my students at Pima.  Funny, coming from me, but sleep really is one of my top resolutions this year to benefit my health and wellness. In fact, this article came about because Tammy asked me what my own goals were after a discussion about goals and how we would know when we achieved them.

That said, following is the article.  I am still trying, and I hope you will the thoughts as you prioritize sleep in your schedule.  While I don't see long afternoon naps in bed or on the couch anywhere close in my future, I am working to make sleep a nighttime priority.  So here ya' go  Hope it helps you think healthy...

Sleep, who needs it?


This time every year, people are setting (and sometimes already breaking) their resolutions for wellness. I am often asked what my goals are for the year. To be quite honest, I am pretty active, and work consistently at getting in the cardio and weights. Leading yoga groups helps me remember not only to practice the yoga, but the mindfulness as well. Nevertheless, stress and exhaustion are ever present. So what is my real goal for health and wellness? Sleep. Did you know that keeping up with sleep can even help fight cancer!

I see students who work out tremendously and eat poorly, those who cannot seem to get themselves into the gym, those who despise either cardio or weights. Somehow, some changes are easier than others. For me, I have struggled to work enough sleep into my schedule since college. But somehow, it was easier to kid myself about the effects of skipping sleep back then.

What are the health effects of not getting enough sleep? Well, when sleep deprivation is short lived, the effects are not too bad, and the health effects are more easily and readily reversed. Yet when you deprive your body of sleep in the long term, the body begins to suffer more.

Some negative side effects of long term sleep deprivation include interference with learning and memory, decreased metabolism and weight gain, inattention due to falling asleep during the daytime, mood swings including irritability and impatience, decrease in cardiovascular health, and a decrease in immune function leading to becoming sick or developing chronic diseases such as diabetes.

It is recommended that you sleep 7-9 hours each night. That isn’t always possible, and sometimes there are people who don’t need quite as much as others. Still, it is while you sleep that your body is most able to repair itself. During sleep, your body focuses on internal processes rather than the never-ending to-do list.

Consider it this way. When your body is deprived of sleep, it goes into a state of stress. This produces stress hormones, and increases the blood pressure and cholesterol levels, adding more stress for your heart and brain, eventually leading toward heart attacks and strokes. Therefore, sleep reduces the stress on your body, allowing for better blood flow and circulation, enabling your body to reduce inflammation and repair from exercise and injury. Then in the day time following that healthy sleep, the sleep induced repair will allow you to pay better attention to the task at hand, and make fewer mistakes. This alertness increases you chances of a better night of sleep the following night. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

When you consider that your new alertness and energy keep you better tuned in, you are paying better attention in class and at work, and processing what you are learning. See where I am going with this? Proper sleep bumps up you memory, your mood, your attentiveness and your cognitive function- allowing you to draw better from your memory banks and seem or become smarter!

I mentioned weight increases with a state of sleep deprivation. Research has shown a greater likelihood of being overweight in those who sleep less than 7 hours each night. The hormones in your body that affect appetite and weight control are easily disrupted when your body doesn’t get the chance to sleep and repair itself. I am sure you are at least remotely familiar with the connection between stress hormones and fat retention as well. Now, sleep won’t make you thin, but it will better enable your body to function, thereby enabling all that work you do in the gym to pay off.

Study after study draws a correlation between drowsiness and heart attacks, cancer, stressed relationships, accidents, memory impairment and a host of other issues. While we are working on our to-do lists and wellness priorities, shouldn’t we include sleep? It is far from easy to make changes, but stay focused, stay organized, and go to bed on time. That early morning workout will be more productive for it, and your body will thank you!