Don't you wish you had more?

 Sleep. 

Time to sleep.

Quality sleep.

Uninterrupted sleep.

It might be time to start thinking about prioritizing SLEEP. 

I recently had the opportunity to listen in on a recorded conference about the importance of sleep. Who am I kidding? I needed the CEUs so I made it a point to pay attention so I could take the quiz at the end & get the credit. But really, I learned A LOT & I would love to share some of it with you! 

First off I learned that you cannot store up sleep! What?!?! You mean, if I know I will not get a lot of sleep coming up (early mornings, tests, appointments, events, etc.) I cannot "rest up" for it? My mind is blown! Nope! 

You can "repay" your "sleep debt". Well then I guess I need to explain what Sleep Debt is...

Everyone should figure out how much sleep they really need. 7-9 hours or 8 hours or whatever you may have heard; there IS NO magic number. You need to find out how much you need as an individual. I have heard of a couple of different ways to do this. 

Method 1: You need to have a period of time where you do not need to set an alarm and will go to be at a consistent time each evening. (Last April might have been a great time to try this method.) Each night you will go to bed at the same time. Each day you will allow yourself to wake up naturally. By the 3rd-5th day you should be waking up at a time that will give you your needed amount of sleep. 

Method 2: This one might be a little easier to do at any given time. Give yourself a couple of nights were you are able to sleep at least 7-9 hours. Then, on the 3rd night, sleep for 7 hours (strict). How do you feel after lunch? Drowsy? You need more. Sleep for 7.5 hours. How do you feel after lunch? Still drowsy? Still need more sleep. Keep going until you find out your "magic" number to help you make it through the day without needing that afternoon shot of caffeine to get you through the day. 

Once you know how much sleep you actually need you will be able to determine if you have "sleep debt". For example I know that I do best with 7.5 hours of sleep. This week I've had 6.5 hrs, 5.5 hrs, 6.5 hrs & 7.5 hrs of sleep. So my current sleep debt for this week is 4 hours! Optimally I would make up those 4 hours later this week, but unfortunately I know that probably won't happen. 

I also learned how HUGE an affect sleep has on performance. There were multiple studies done on different groups of athletes to determine the effects of sleep on their performance. These also apply to the rest of us "regular folks" as well! 

One last thing we learned about was how not enough sleep affects our immune response. They used the cold virus in this study, but it definitely applies to our immune system in general. In these times I know I am not alone in wanting my immune system to function at peak ability!

If you haven't invested in a fitness tracker that will help you track & understand your sleep I would definitely suggest considering one. Hey! You can ask for one as your Christmas present this year! 

I blogged a while back about how getting one for myself that DID show me that data really opened my eyes to how I was really sleeping a while back! Read more about that HERE.