Consider your daily schedule, do you make the effort to fall asleep and wake up at the same time every day? According to many sleep experts and researchers, the timing of your sleep is just as important as collecting 7-9 hours of shut-eye every night of the week. According to The Huffington Post, here’s how your busy schedule gets in the way of you achieve rejuvenating sleep:
- Your work comes home with you: Staying up late to meet deadlines and take on extra projects to further your career can cause just the opposite. It only takes one night of altering your sleep schedule to disrupt your circadian rhythm, encouraging insomnia and other sleep disorders that can make it challenging to fall asleep and stay there when you are finally serious about your snooze.
- You give in to late night cravings: As your body begins to crave large servings of unhealthy foods at the wrong time, not only are you more likely to pack on unwanted pounds, but those fried, rich foods at dinner can disrupt your sleep by bringing on indigestion and acid reflux. Additionally, easing your late night work stress with a nightcap will also hurt your snooze by increasing bathroom trips and interrupting the stage of sleep importance for memory consolidation.
- You can’t remember the last time you’ve really seen the sun: If you work indoors, and don’t have a window office, the lack of exposure to natural sunlight and the overexposure to artificial light can easily knock your sleep schedule out of sync. Try soaking up at least 15-30 minutes of sunlight during your lunch break, especially if you aren’t absorbing those morning rays upon waking up.
- You aren’t exercising at the right time or at all: Regularly exercising at anytime of the day has been proven to improve sleep quality and duration. However, working out too late can push back your bedtime. Don’t let your busy schedule push your exercise regimen further down on your list of priorities; it also helps relieve anxiety and stress.
- You plan for sleep only on the weekends: Sleep deprivation cannot be cancelled out by sleeping more on the weekends, and drastically changing your sleep pattern isn’t doing you any favors for being able to fall asleep during the week. Stick to a weekend routine that allows you to tuck in and wake up within an hour of your regularly scheduled time on work days.
Sleep has a hand in every aspect of your life, including the career that you may be losing shut-eye over. To find out how sleep deprivation hurts your job performance, click here!
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