I’m not getting enough sleep. Are you?

I’m a total and complete night owl so my natural tendency is to stay up late because my brain is most awake then.

However, I work full-time so I don’t have the luxury of totally living in tune with my body clock.

I used to have a rule about my bedtime and, to be honest, it still exists. I’m just not following it at all.

I like to be sleeping by 12 so I need to be in bed by 11 since I read for an hour every night – bliss!

And here’s my rule – computer off by 10:30.

(I’m typing this at 11:02 pm!)

I found I’d be getting to bed at least 30 minutes later when I didn’t enforce my computer rule because I forgot about tidying the desk, doing my bedtime routine, etc.

What about you? Are you getting enough sleep?

Connor - age 4 and three-quarters :)

Connor – age 4 and three-quarters πŸ™‚

Most adults don’t get enough sleep and we’re all functioning (or not) at below-par levels of productivity and … life enjoyment.

Sleep helps our bodies to work better, helps us manage stress, helps us with weight loss if we’re trying to lose weight and of course, helps us rest and recharge from day to day.

I need 7 hours of good sleep a night. On the weekends I get an extra hour and sometimes even an afternoon nap with or without my five-year-old twins. This weekend I napped for an hour on Sunday afternoon and they entertained themselves. Bliss!

Do you know how much sleep you need?

Gretchen Rubin wrote a post some time ago asking about bedtimes.

She said something interesting in that once you set a bedtime (we now know mine is 11 or 12, depending how you look at it), if you ignore that bedtime, you’re then consciously choosing to do what you were doing instead of going to bed.

I love it!

Here’s a coaching challenge for you:

– What is your standard wake-up time?
– Work back at least 7 hours. That is the time you have to be asleep by.
– How long do you need before falling asleep? Subtract the amount of hours.
– Also subtract time for your bedtime routine – face, teeth, reading, etc.
– For the next week, set an alarm or reminder in your phone or computer that says “go to bed”.
– Keep track of your productivity the following day as you start getting enough sleep.

Let me know how that works for you!

What time do you go to bed?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Comments

  1. I too lack sleep on a regular basis. I have an alarm to get up in the morning, and I never miss it. I have THREE alarms to go to bed (at 10:00, saying “time to get ready to bed!”, at 10:15, saying “Bedtime!!” and at 10:30 saying “GO TO BED, DARN IT!!!”) and I ignore those almost every day. I usually sleep between 6 and 6:30 hours per night, which is way less than the 7:30 I’d need to function happily. And now that I read your article, I think I might know why I have so much trouble losing weight recently. Or at least one of the factors!

  2. Melinda says

    I actually bought a fitbit to monitor my sleep….I go to bed at 9:30 and wake up at 4:30. We discovered that I sleep on average 4.5-5 hours. The rest is restless. We then put our video camera on us for two nights to find out why. And discovered that my B moves alot in his sleep and this disturbs me. So, in theory I get to bed in time to get 7 hours..but the quality of my sleep sucks…so now we are working on him getting him to sleep better..so that I can get sleep

    • Marcia Francois says

      Mel, I think that’s such an amazing insight – that your sleep is restless. I hope you’re enjoying better quality sleep these days.

Leave a Reply to Marcia Francois Cancel reply

*

WP2Social Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com