Month: February 2015

You Snooze, You Lose…How Your Snooze Button Is Killing Your Sleep And Productivity

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Snooze

It’s 6am Monday morning and you wake up to one of the most awful sounds ever known to mankind, the dreaded alarm clock.

You roll over and hit the snooze button telling yourself an extra 9 minutes of sleep is going to make getting out of bed so much easier.

Then comes that horrible sound again, and without fail you hit that snooze button for another 9 minutes of sleep feeling even worse than before.

After the second or third round of hitting the snooze button you finally get up to avoid being late for work which catapults you into reactive mode rather than proactive mode.

Why do we let ourselves be a slave to the snooze button?

I swear every morning when the alarm goes off the first thought in my mind is if I hit the snooze button those 9 extra minutes is all I need to feel refreshed.

But what happens?

Those 9 minutes ends up turning into 27 minutes and now I rush to work mode.

Does this ever happen to you?

One survey found that more than ⅓ of Americans have fallen prey to the snooze button.

What’s more alarming (no pun intended) is more than half of people between the ages of 25-34 have fallen into the curse of the snooze button.

So, other than getting us off to a late start, why is it bad to hit the snooze button?

When we wake up to an alarm clock then hit the snooze button several times, each of those mini sleep sessions are very low quality sleep.

Those little sleep sessions end up throwing us off our regular sleep schedule.

When we are on a regular sleep schedule our body will naturally prepare itself to wake up at the proper time.

It starts this approximately an hour or two before us waking.

How so?

During this time our body starts to increase our body temperature and releases the proper chemicals to aide in waking up.

When we hit the snooze button and fall back asleep we are telling our body that it was a false alarm so it stops the process of waking up.

Then when we do it a second time we’ve completely confused our brain and body by disrupting our internal clock resulting in that groggy fuzzy feeling called sleep inertia.

Sleep inertia can last for several hours after waking up and studies have shown that a person loses performance and cognitive skills due to a lack of quality sleep.

We’re also training our body mentally and physically to be in both a reactive state and passive state.

Rather than being productive and proactive we begin our day by procrastinating the very first thing in the morning, which is waking up.

Now that you understand what is happening every time we hit the snooze button, let’s work towards breaking that habit and improving our sleep as a whole.

First, start by committing to getting on a regular sleep schedule by going to bed and waking up at the same time each day, and yes, that includes weekends.

Second, if going cold turkey without the snooze button is too difficult, try limiting yourself to one snooze each morning and from there move towards not snoozing all together.

Third, once your alarm goes off get yourself up out of bed and expose yourself to sun or light.

Fourth, a bonus, remove the alarm clock totally and allow your body to wake up on its own when it’s done sleeping.

Don’t think it can be done see the proof right here.

Hopefully this article helped you understand how to improve your sleep and productivity in a small way. If it did, feel free to share it with a friend or leave a comment.

 

References

i.https://greatist.com/happiness/snooze-button-bad-for-sleep

ii.https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/health/upwave-snooze-button/

iii. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/01/why-hitting-snooze-is-bad-for-health_n_5630707.html

iv. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/01/why-hitting-snooze-is-bad-for-health_n_5630707.html

What To Remove From Your Room Right Now For Better Sleep

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Sleep Meme

We have become a people consumed with media.

Whether it be our TV, our smart phone, or our tablet, we are like the Depeche Mode we just can’t get enough.

The problem with this is it has started to affect our quality of sleep.

In order for us to get the most out of our sleep, I am going to reveal the number one item that is in the majority of our bedrooms that we must remove right this instant to maximize our sleep quality.

Drum roll please………

Our television.

This should be a no brainer, however according to a national consumer study, nearly two-thirds of Americans fall asleep with the TV on.

This is insane!

We have become so attached to our TVs that the average household has more TVs than people residing in their home.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we need to throw out our TVs all together because I too enjoy watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead.

However, what I am saying is let’s enjoy our TV but not in the comfort of our bedrooms.

Our bedroom should only be for sleeping and connecting with our spouse (wink, wink).

There was a study done on two types of couples, those that have a TV in their bedroom and those that don’t have a TV in their bedroom.

It was discovered those that do have a TV in their room have sex half as often as those who don’t.

With that said, I now rest my case.

But wait there’s more.

Our TVs emit a blue light that tricks our brains into thinking it is day rather than night which in turn suppresses our bodies’ natural secretion of melatonin which is our sleep hormone.

By suppressing the production of melatonin it also throws off our circadian rhythm.

Whoa hang on there, you’re talking mumbo jumbo to me.

Let me explain.

Our circadian biological clock regulates the timing of periods of sleepiness and wakefulness throughout the day.

So, watching TV just before bedtime hinders our sleep because light is the main cue influencing our circadian rhythm, and this is turning on or turning off genes that control our organism’s internal clock.

Basically the artificial light from the TV over stimulates our brains tricking it to think it is day time.

Now let’s do a quick recap why having a TV in our bedroom is bad news.

1)  By having a TV in our room it leads to less sex with our spouse.

2) It throws off our sleep cycle confusing our brain into thinking it is day rather than night.

Hopefully this article has been helpful for you improving not only your sleep but also your relationship with your spouse.

If you have taken action removing your TV from your bedroom please let us know in the comments below as we would love to hear the wonders it has done helping you improve your sleep.

 

 

Coffee and Sleep… It’s A Love Hate Relationship

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coffee heart

Yaaawn…

You finally begin to wake up after hitting the snooze button one too many times and all you can think of is you need coffee NOW!

So, you stumble to the kitchen and pick out your favorite coffee and begin brewing.

Just the smell of your favorite coffee beans gives you a nice kickstart to your day and begins to give you hope that everything will be o.k.

The fresh pot of coffee is now nice and hot and the beautiful aroma of your freshly brewed Fair Trade coffee is now ready to be poured into your favorite mug.

You take a quick sniff just before you are about to take a sip and immediately a smile forms on your face, the first smile of the day because in that moment you feel like you are in heaven.

After a couple cups of fresh joe you’re ready to take on the day!

Nothing can stop you, because today you are going to change the world!

However, 2pm comes around and all that gusto to change the world has left you and you’re ready to crash right there on your desk.

So what do you do?

Well, if you’re like the almost 50% percent of americans then you have yourself another cup of coffee to give you that ”pick me up” you so desperately need.

So you drink a few more cups of coffee and now you’re set to finish your work day off strong.

But not so fast.

Because before you know it bedtime comes and you can’t seem to fall asleep.

You have this restless feeling and stay up all night tossing and turning before you finally drift to sleep.

Come the next morning you again struggle to get out of bed and wake up fully until you have your morning coffee.

This carries you to lunch and then of course you drink a couple more cups to get you through the rest of the day.

This now becomes the story of your life.

A vicious cycle has been created and if you are going to make it through the day you not only need coffee in the morning but also in the afternoon followed by more restless nights.

What’s happening here?

Coffee and sleep… it truly is a love hate relationship.

Did you know that the caffeine in coffee has a half life of about 6 hours?

That means that even after 6 hours of drinking coffee you still have half the amount of caffeine circulating in your body.

So when you drink that cup of coffee after 2pm by the time you go to bed there’s still at least half of the caffeine still running through your system.

How do you fix this?

Give yourself a coffee curfew.Try and stop drinking coffee after 12:00 p.m.

This may be difficult to begin with but as you wean yourself off the afternoon coffee you’ll set yourself up for success in the evening when it’s time for bed.

This can help your body to get on a regular sleep schedule which would help avoid that groggy feeling in the morning and the change in mood swings during the day.

No, I am not telling you to get rid of coffee all together because as you will see coffee can be a useful tool.

There are many health benefits to drinking coffee and as long as we respect the effects it can have on our body we can maximize the benefits.

Studies on drinking coffee regularly has shown that it can help lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, liver cancer, liver disease, and may also help ease strain on the heart.

If you would like to read in more detail on how coffee can protect against these diseases I have included the sources at the bottom of this page.

Drinking coffee can also help improve your brain power.

The caffeine in the coffee acts as a brain stimulant and can help you think more freely. It achieves this by blocking the activity of adenosine which is a neurotransmitter that affects almost every bodily function.

By blocking adenosine, caffeine actually releases other neurotransmitters in the brain called dopamine and norepinephrine which help regulates our mood and behavior.

So here’s how sleep and coffee can be a very good dynamic duo.

First try to stop drinking coffee after lunch.

Then give yourself a good night sleep and after waking up feeling rested give yourself your favorite cup of joe to turn on your brain making you more productive and allowing your mind to think more clearly.

And if you want an extra boost with your coffee then try bullet proof coffee.

These changes aren’t difficult to make it just takes a little discipline.

And hopefully after reading this you’ll learn to use coffee and sleep to work together rather than against each other.

If you learned something reading this let us know by writing us a comment below we’d love to connect with you.

Or if you have tips on how you use coffee without the negative side effects we would love to hear from you.

 

References

i.https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247583.php

ii.https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270202.php

iii. https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/caffeine-and-sleep

iv.https://www.webmd.com/heart/news/20131120/does-caffeine-in-coffee-perk-up-heart-health

v.https://worldofcaffeine.com/caffeine-and-neurotransmitters/