sleep

13 Things About Sleep You May Not Have Known

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sleepy bear

Sleep is wonderful. I have never met a person who did not like sleep.

Wait a minute, I take that back, my 1.5 year old and 3 year old daughters don’t like sleep but I think it’s just a phase they are going through.

And now that I have kids I have much more respect for sleep.

Being that I love sleep so much I thought it would be neat to share 13 little sleep facts you may not have know.

1)  Humans spend a third of their life sleeping. That comes out to be around 25 years. (No wonder why it’s so important to invest in a high quality mattress).

2)  Parents of new babies miss out on 6 months of sleep in the first 2 years of their child’s life.

3)  Sleeping less than 7 hours each night can affect your performance during the day. (The average adult need between 7.5-9 hours of sleep each night).

4)  Lack of sleep can cause weight gain of 2 pounds in under a week.

5)  A snail can sleep for 3 years.

6)  It’s impossible to sneeze while you sleep.

7)  Sleeping on the job is acceptable in Japan as it is seen as a sign of commitment and hard work (that’s what I have been telling my two brothers Pablo and Sam when I’m sleeping in the mattress store).

8)  Half of British pilots admit to falling asleep in the cockpit. (I will definitely not be flying on British Airways anytime soon).

9)  Exercising regularly makes it easier to fall asleep and contributes to sounder sleep as long as it is not right before going to bed.

10)  Sleep is just as important as diet and exercise

11)  Some deaf people make sign language in their sleep.

12)  Dysania is the state of finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning (so when you are late to work just tell your boss you have been diagnosed with Dysania).

13)  Before alarm clocks were invented there were “knocker-ups” who went tapping on client’s windows with long sticks until they were awake (I wonder who woke up the “knocker-ups”).

If you thought this was interesting and you learned something new, please like and share with your pals as I am sure they would like to know these random facts on sleep too.

Or if you want to be that guy or gal at the party who knows and blurts out random information you probably won’t want to share this with them since this will be old news to them.

In that case write us a comment and tell us you like it since we have this deep need of being liked ;).

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

3 Activities To Avoid Before Going To Bed

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Sleeping in front of tv

Sleep is probably one of the most glorious acts we do each day. It is amazing how sleep helps us feel refreshed, restores our body, and relaxes our muscles.

However, approximately 30% of the population complains about sleep disruption.

To help you sleep better, I have listed three activities you must avoid doing before going to bed.

Exercising

No, this is not me giving you an excuse to quit your new year’s resolution of working out.

So please don’t go tell your spouse or your friends that you can’t workout because some mattress guy told you it affects your sleep.

So please do work out, just not close to bedtime.

The reason is two fold.

First it can over stimulate us and make it tougher for us to unwind.

Secondly, it can spike our core temperature and take it longer for our body to cool down which it naturally does when we go to sleep.

If you do exercise before bed and don’t think it interferes with your sleep try exercising in the morning and see if you notice a difference on how you feel throughout the day.

Watching TV

Have you ever stayed up late and watched something super random like Finding Bigfoot or The Lost Tapes of the Chupacabra?

No?

Well I have.

And just so you know it was definitely not worth it.

I don’t even believe in that stuff and yet there I was wasting away each precious moment of sleep as I sat in front of the TV watching one of those ridiculous shows.

Anyways, the point of the story is watching TV before bed time is bad.

It’s bad because the later it gets the worst we are at choosing a good show to watch.

And more importantly the light emitted from the TV suppresses our body’s natural production of melatonin which is our sleep hormone.

Taking a hot bath or shower

This is a tough one because a nice warm shower in the evening feels so relaxing.

However, If you are going to take a hot bath and then immediately after get ready for bed then this should be avoided.

Our body temperature naturally cools down in the evening to prepare us for sleep.

By taking a hot bath or shower just before bed we are fighting our body’s natural tendency and making it tougher for us to get a good night sleep because our body has to work harder to bring its core temperature down.

If you do take a bath or shower in the evening do so at least an hour before bedtime.

So in order for you to sleep like a boss then avoid these three activities before bed and you should notice improvements in your sleep quality.