Why Not Getting Enough Sleep Is Ruining Aspects Of Your Life.
Why is it that a lot of people have a deeply negative relationship with their alarm? How do they deal with it?
The most instinctive reaction is to hit the snooze button, essentially delaying the inevitability of kickstarting the day by a few minutes just to catch a few extra Zs with no real benefit.
If you experience this multiple times a week, then perhaps you are simply ignoring one of the key necessities of life - you aren’t getting enough sleep. Or maybe there’s a deeper issue. Namely, you would rather just stay in bed rather than deal with the issues that you might have to face in the day ahead, such as school, university, or work.
As a Personal Trainer at Lockeroom, one of the core principles that we try to live by each and every day is to coach by example as we are a client centric club. The coaches wake up at 5:00am every weekday morning to prepare sessions and personal train Lockeroom members. Sure, some mornings feel better than others, but we don’t wake up feeling resentful or fearful of what the coming day will bring. We do it because if we choose to stay in bed, then we are not practicing what we are preaching to our members day in, day out.
A recent survey published in a Nature and Science of Sleep journal reported that around 33% of respondents were getting less than 6.5 hours of sleep per night. 63% perceived they were not getting enough sleep. The effects of these sleep deficiencies are not at all surprising; poor emotional health, sub-standard physical performance, difficulty with motivation and struggles with concentrating on basic tasks. If the negative consequences of deficient sleep are so predictably obvious, then why do so many people not get enough sleep? Because of their pre-sleep routine and habits.
In the day and age of social media and on-demand video streaming, it’s not astonishing to learn that many people will be binge-watching their favourite TV on Netflix or scrolling through their Instagram feeds, or doing some online shopping immediately prior to sleeping. Multiple studies have concluded that spending pre-sleep time on a screen, whether it be a smart phone, laptop, or television significantly affects the quality and quantity of your sleep. In the long-term, poor sleep can be extremely damaging to your health. In other words, you’ll be eternally exhausted.
Now I'm not saying that there isn’t a time and place to spend some recreational time on your screen. Everyone needs time to chill-out and have some downtime. But ask yourself, is watching another episode of your favourite TV show tonight worth having a horrible day tomorrow?
So, if you want to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to kickstart your day, then maybe it’s time to change your night time habits. Set aside some screen-time, but in the one-hour before bedtime, put your phone on do-not-disturb, and turn the TV off.
Instead you could;
Read a chapter of a book
Listen to some music
Write some words in a journal
Clean your room
The personal training clients we service at Lockeroom know this all too well. Members come to us with goals and we help them adopt healthier habits so they can be more productive in their stressful roles, service their companies more effectively and lead by example by living a better quality of life. If you are not getting the right amount of sleep I would strongly encourage you to change your current sleep habits and try it for a few nights, I can almost guarantee you that you’ll notice the difference. You’ll feel fresher, more alert, confident, and more optimistic about the day ahead.
Interested in Lockeroom Gym Personal Trainers Sydney? Enquire here: https://lockeroomgym.com/apply
