Sleep is your body’s superpower. It gives you energy, mental clarity, and improves both your physical and mental health. As such, not getting enough sleep impacts your day a great deal. Many people assume that you can make up for sleep deprivation with caffeine, but this isn’t the case.
Here is what you need to know about how sleep impacts your day, what not getting enough sleep does to your body, and how you can address various issues that could interfere with getting a deep, restful slumber.
The Significance Of Sleep For A Good Day
You know how after a good night’s sleep you wake up refreshed, energized, and ready to take on the day? It’s amazing how much good sleep impacts your day for the better! Research shows that sleep is an essential component of being able to achieve your best physical and mental health.
Some of the ways in which sleep affects your day for the better include:
- Improved memory
- Better emotional regulation
- Boosted immune system functionality
- Maintaining optimal metabolism
- Improved focus
- Increased energy
- Supporting healthy development and growth
- Decreased risk of health problems
- Increased productivity
- Better mood
- And more!
You know that phrase: “sleep it off”? This stems from how sleep can help your body recover so that you can enjoy improved physical, mental, and emotional health.
The Alarming Effects Of Sleep Deprivation
When Daylight Savings Time hits, you likely feel the effect of sleep deprivation that can happen merely by losing an hour of sleep in a night. You probably feel fatigued, have more trouble concentrating, and may be more irritable throughout the day. Studies show that car accidents increase in the days immediately following Daylight Savings Time and connect them to the increased amount of drowsy drivers.
This tells you just how much losing even one hour of sleep can negatively affect you. Of course, reading the above section and the positive benefits of how getting enough sleep impacts your day gives you an idea of how sleep deprivation can do the opposite.
Some of the ways lack of sleep impacts your day include:
- Irritability
- Decreased productivity
- Memory issues
- Mood changes
- Trouble thinking and concentrating
- Weakened immunity
- Increased risk of higher blood pressure
- Increased risk of Type 2 diabetes
- Increased risk of heart disease
- Increased risk of weight gain
- Lowered sex drive
- Poor balance
- Decreased healing capabilities
- And more
You can feel the effects of how lack of sleep impacts your day even when you miss an hour or two. If you chronically don’t get enough sleep, your body won’t be able to function as well as it should and you won’t be on the same level as your peers who do sleep enough. Your mental health can take a hit and your interpersonal relationships can be affected by your increased moodiness. Impaired judgment increases your risk of being in an accident.
Many people don’t realize just how badly lack of sleep impacts your day and your overall health.
What’s Keeping You Up?
Many people know that adults need 7-8 hours of sleep each night. However, many feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done and to get enough sleep. There are a few different reasons for why people don’t get enough sleep.
- Sleep disorders. Problems like insomnia can keep you up even if you’re exhausted and want nothing more than to sleep. If you think that you may have a sleep disorder, talk to your doctor. They may prescribe you sleeping medication or have other solutions.
- Not prioritizing sleep. If you’re a busy person, you may view sleep as a luxury rather than a necessity. However, sleep is especially important if you’re busy, as it improves your ability to be more productive.
- Having caffeine later in the day. You want to avoid caffeine after 3pm. It can take 6-8 hours for caffeine to wear off, which inhibits your body’s production of melatonin. It decreases your ability to get enough sleep and can cause the sleep you do get to be less restful.
- Not having a set time for going to bed and waking up. Unless you have the freedom of working from home or setting your own schedule, you probably have set times to wake up and go to bed throughout the work week. However, come the weekend, you may turn off the alarm clock and let yourself sleep in, then go to bed whenever you want. This disrupts your body’s sleeping schedule, which can make it harder to go to bed during the work week.
- Stress and anxiety. These can both cause your body to release adrenaline, which increases your heart rate and energy levels. If your thoughts are racing, trying to calm them can be difficult. If meditation, breathing exercises, and the like do not help you, you can seek out medical help.
- Too much light. This tells your body that you’re supposed to be awake, which is why it’s recommended that you avoid using technology within an hour of bedtime. Sunlight can make it difficult for night-shift workers to be able to sleep during the day.
- Napping too long. Babies, young children, and teenagers all need more sleep than adults do. For them, naps can help them get enough sleep. However, napping too long can negatively affect your sleep patterns for adults, especially if you nap later in the day.
These are but some of the reasons why you may struggle to get to sleep at night. If this is a chronic problem for you, seeing a doctor can help you. Sleep is vital to your health. It’s important to take what’s keeping you up seriously and to make getting enough sleep a priority.
How To Help Yourself Get Better Sleep
Knowing how much sleep impacts your day and being able to get enough sleep are two entirely different beasts. People who struggle to get enough sleep because of stress, anxiety, sleep disorders, and more may have an even harder time getting to sleep precisely because they are stressing about their inability to.
Fortunately, though, there are things that you can do to help yourself fall asleep and get better sleep.
- Don’t stress about it. Easier said than done, but the more that you fixate on the sleep you’re not getting, the harder it is to get enough sleep.
- Avoid bright lights and screens before bed. Try to dim the lights and do relaxing activities like reading in the hour before you go to sleep, rather than binge-watching that new show on your favorite streaming service.
- Don’t have caffeine in the afternoon and later. This means sodas, coffees, and green teas. This way, your body will be able to produce enough melatonin to help you be sleepy at night and get restful sleep.
- Give yourself a cool, dark environment to sleep in. Light tells your body it’s time to be awake, so if you are afraid of the dark, try a soft nightlight instead. You don’t want the temperature to be too hot or too cold, as both of these can cause you to wake up throughout the night. You do want it to be cool, though, to mimic how your body temperature drops when you sleep. If you are a night-shift worker, blackout blinds can help create a dark environment so that you can sleep during the day.
- Address your stress and anxiety. If your stress or mental health issues are impacting your sleep, see someone who can help you. This can be a therapist, a doctor, or both.
- Treat medical issues. If lack of sleep impacts your day, it could be a medical problem. Sleep apnea, physical pain, and more can all prevent you from sleeping.
These are but some of the ways you can help yourself get enough sleep. If you have physical pain, like back pain or neck pain, seeing a chiropractor can relieve it. When you don’t have to take painkillers but can have the pain healed, you’ll likely be able to sleep much better.
Is Back Pain Interfering With The Quality Of Your Sleep?
As you can see, sleep impacts your day a great deal. It’s crucial to ensure that you get enough sleep and that the sleep you get is restful. If back pain, neck pain, or another type of ache and pain is interfering with your quality of sleep, Ogden Chiropractic is here to help.
Our chiropractors stimulate your body’s natural healing processes and bring your body back into alignment. This can relieve your pain in a natural way. When you’re in less pain, you’ll be able to sleep better at night.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation to see if chiropractic care is right for you.
