Are you getting away with less sleep? Or are you just telling yourself you are? Whether you stay awake because you can’t get to sleep, you are a busy mom or a workaholic, getting sleep should be a top priority. Want a good reason why? This may not come as a surprise, but less sleep makes you less productive, and this cannot be remedied with extra coffee. What may come as a surprise though is that you are actually less productive even though you feel like you are getting more done
Not only does sleep deprivation cut into your productivity during the day, it also damages your health. When you sleep your body repairs itself, and it helps your mind absorb everything you went through that day. When you loose out on sleep you will experience the following short term effects:
Irritability
Fatigue
Careless mistakes
Slower reaction times
Difficulty concentrating
Increased stress
These problems can affect your relationships, and your productivity and performance at home and work. If you are staying up to get ‘more done’, think twice, because the next day you will compensate by actually getting less done. Instead, get some sleep, which will increase your productivity dramatically.
When we expose our bodies to extended days of sleep deprivation, our body goes through “fast forward” aging. We experience memory loss, metabolic problems and poor physical performance. When we continue to deprive ourself of much needed sleep over a longer period of time even more serious problems can pop up, including diabetes, depression, high blood pressure, obesity and a weakened immune system.
The only thing you can do to make up for your “sleep debt”, is to actually get some sleep! The more sleep deprivation you have gone through, the longer it will take for you to catch up and feel back to normal.
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