One Track Mind

I have a riddle (not really) for you all:

 

What is something that everyone needs, every single day to function properly?

Hint: other than food and water.

 

What’s your immediate first thought? Something like happiness, or exercise? Friendship?

Nope. We’re going much more primal than that.

 

SLEEP.

 

I have been super cranky this weekend. At first I blamed in on my 12 mile run, saying I was just exhausted. But you know what? It wasn’t that. I started thinking about it, and I’ve been getting less and less sleep over the past couple of weeks and it’s really starting to hit me. I was pretty cranky this weekend (sorry to my brothers…) and it was purely because I was so tired, but so busy and didn’t have a chance to relax (or nap).

Now, you might be thinking, well why don’t you just go to bed earlier or sleep in a bit?

That’s not the problem. I am IN my bed with the lights out and no distractions for 8 hours every night. I fall asleep just fine. But 2 hours later, I’m awake! Back to sleep. 2 more hours later, I’m awake! Can’t fall back asleep… Listen to some music, eventually fall back asleep. 2 hours later, you guessed it: AWAKE!

It’s getting ridiculous.

 

 

I’ve actually never been someone to sleep through the night. I almost always wake up once or twice, but I go back to sleep just fine. Currently, I’m up half the night, and usually by 4 or 5am, that’s it. I’m awake.

Now, I realize that this isn’t the most thrilling blog post topic ever – but I’m currently sitting at school at 3pm waiting around for my 4pm class and all I’ve wanted to do since I got up this morning was take a nap. Sadly, that’s not an option when you have class all day and can’t go home. Thus, all I can think about is sleep. So bear with me.

 

 

Since I have sleep on my mind, I decided to look up a few articles about sleep and share them with you. I actually did this a few weeks back with some Huffington Post articles, so clearly my sleeping pattern has been off for a while… ha. Here’s an article from a Harvard Health Journal that I found:

The Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests six reasons to get enough sleep:

1. Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.
2. Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.
3. Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.
4. Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do. **Um, yea, definite side effect**
5. Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.
6. Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.

(source)

One thing I thought was interesting about this list was the metabolism and weight. I’ve been sticking to weighing myself only once a week (okay, really twice) and I’ve found that despite all the exercise and healthy eating that I follow (don’t worry, I have slip ups too!) I haven’t lost any of the weight I gained over break (about 3lbs) from eating unhealthy foods and lots of sugar… I’m wondering if stress and lack of sleep is contributing to this! It is DEFNITELY contributing to my mood! And I know it’s affecting my school work as well, I’m just not focusing on anything I’m reading, and it’s been so hard to pay attention in class today!

I also took this snippet from

“It’s not just the number of hours in bed that is important—it’s the quality of those hours of sleep. If you’re giving yourself plenty of time for sleep, but you’re still having trouble waking up in the morning or staying alert all day, you may not be spending enough time in the different stages of sleep—especially deep sleep and REM sleep. By understanding how the sleep cycles work and the factors that can lead to those cycles being disrupted, you’ll be able to start getting both the quantity and the quality of sleep you need.” (source).

Clearly just being in my bed for 8 hours is not enough! I need my REM sleep!

I did see my doctor this weekend and he thinks some of my digestion issues and the supplements he has me on could be part of the issue, so he gave me something to see if it helps at all. I sure hope it does because I can’t take much more of this! Haha I was seriously considering just skipping school tomorrow (only one class in the morning) before my meeting for some extra zzz’s, but now that I read it’s not just about hours, I realize that probably won’t help! Ugh, guess I’ll be at Business Organizations tomorrow morning…  (actually TODAY since I wrote this yesterday).

 

On a completely unrelated note, has anyone heard of the mascot Blue from Butler University in Indiana? He’s a bulldog and so cute (currently it’s Blue II). My friend went to a different school in Indiana and I’m not sure how, but he got me hooked on Blue2. I actually follow him on twitter.

Well, Blue has a little brother now: Trip.

(source)

Is he not adorable?!!?!? He also has a twitter account. Feel free to follow him for constant adorable pictures. I highly recommend it.

And I guess it’s not completely unrelated, since he and his big bro get a lot of sleep: picture. <— I highly recommend looking through their flickr account!

 

Am I the only one who doesn’t ever sleep the whole night through? And we’re talking, WIDE awake several times a night.

Anyone you follow on twitter (other than other bloggers) do you love and recommend to other people?