3 Reasons Not to Skip Sleep
The difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, known as insomnia, affects many people. Although the odd sleepless night is not something to worry about, chronic disrupted Sleep can significantly impact our health.
Although there are many negative health consequences from poor sleep, we wanted to highlight three major areas:
- Increased Development of Medical Conditions: The odds of having any chronic medical problems are 5x higher for those that struggle with chronic insomnia than those who don’t.
- Increased Pain Levels: In a 2008 general population study, the research highlighted the relationship between sleep duration and following-day pain. Getting less than six hours (or more than nine hours) of sleep was associated with substantial increases in pain frequency the following day.
- Decreased Performance Levels: Sleep deprivation makes us less productive even though we think we’re getting ahead. Sleeping less than seven hours per night has decreased performance testing in alertness, reaction time, memory and decision-making.
Tips for Better Sleep
Since sleep is a behaviour, it stands to reason that our sleep habits can influence our sleep quality and duration. Here are a few tips to improve your Sleep:
Tip #1: Keep your Reading, Working and TV Watching out of the Bedroom
Although one’s bed can seem like a comfortable extension of the couch, performing activities other than sleep can result in poor behavioural conditioning. This behavioural conditioning is because these activities connect with the bedroom; unfortunately, sleep gets left behind.