These Simple Steps Can Increase The Quality Of Your Sleep

[PADemD]

The next time you tell yourself that you'll sleep when you're dead, realize that you're making a decision that can make that day come much sooner.

Pushing late into the night is a health and productivity killer.

According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, the short-term productivity gains from skipping sleep to work are quickly washed away by the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on your mood, ability to focus, and access to higher-level brain functions for days to come.

The negative effects of sleep deprivation are so great that people who are drunk outperform those lacking sleep.

http://www.businessinsider.com/increase-the-quality-of-your-sleep-2014-12

[840high]

1. kick

[Warpy]

2. Some of us are natural night owls

Others start to fade at 8 PM. I wish our jobs respected that difference. I always scrambled for evening and night jobs because day jobs have been pure torture.

I tried to be a day person for five years after I retired. It didn't work, spectacularly so.

[2theleft]

9. I absolutely agree.

I am a night owl. Being at work by 8:00 is horrible. I am very fortunate that my boss of the last few years understands me and never schedules meetings before 10:00. He knows I will be working into the evening so it doesn't bother him. I know I'm very lucky that I have that flexibility. I wish everyone that had jobs in traditional 8-5 fields had such an understanding person to work for.

[shenmue]

3. I like sleep

I'll check out the article. Thanks.

[99th_Monkey]

4. Isn't sleep deprivation one of the "enhanced interrogation" techniques?

It's generally assumed to be "no big deal", but this shows it really is a big deal, as in
taking years off a person's life.

[Doctor_J]

6. I think it is the linch pin of most courses of torture

[99th_Monkey]

7. I get 9-10 hours a night.

and am feeling great at 71.

[SheilaT]

5. Every bit of research about sleep indicates that

we almost all need more than we are getting. Plus, there are too many myths out there about not needing more than some arbitrary number of hours, like 4 or 5, or claims that certain highly creative people never slept much. Thomas Edison was one, but his lab assistants noted that he took lots of naps.

Pushing late into the night is bad only if you are still getting up early the next morning. Those of us who are natural night owls simply get our quota of sleep on a different schedule. I do get very irritated at the sanctimonious morning people who think they are vastly better than those who stay up late, completely overlooking that night-shift types also do valuable work.

I'm likewise convinced that among the reasons I'm as healthy as I am is that I generally get lots of sleep. And no, I don't feel I'm missing anything, because my energy level when I'm awake is quite high.

[tridim]

8. A teaspoon of organic raw honey before bed works surprizingly well.

It's kind of counter-intuitive, but it really helps me stay asleep all night and feel like a million bucks when I wake up. It works much better than I ever expected.

Apparently it is used as energy for liver regeneration during the night.

[Silent3]

10. It's possible that expecting to get most of our sleep all at once...

...isn't the optimal way to do it, and that sleeping all the way through the night in a single 7-9 hour session of sleep (or at least thinking that's what you should be trying to do) is a fairly modern cultural change brought on by street lighting and the industrial revolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

[PADemD]

11. Thank you for that link.

Instead of feeling frustrated, I'll remember that segmented sleep is normal when I wake up in the middle of the night.

[ellenrr]

12. from the article re meditation and sleep:

"A similar study at the University of Massachusetts Medical School found that 91% of participants either reduced the amount of medication they needed to sleep or stopped taking medication entirely after a mindfulness and sleep therapy course."

I have to get back to meditation and yoga.
That's the only thing that works for me.

thanks for the article.

[rocktivity]

13. In response, the rock band Bon Jovi issued a statement

"NOW you tell us!"

rocktivity