I’m going to try an experiment in May. Coming to the realization that I’ve GOT to start sleeping more, even if that means I’m down to 1.5 hours of free time after we get the kids to bed. I listened to Matt Walker’s “Why We Sleep” awhile ago, which is an excellent (if alarming) book that lays out all kinds of reasons why not sleeping enough is accelerating your death while causing countless health issues along the way. However, it’s been so hard to change habits because I’m such a night owl and it’s so easy for me to stay up on the laptop until midnight or 1am every night (but yet so hard to get up at 5:50am every day). I’ve been averaging less than 6 hours a night for about 6 months now* and I am really feeling the effects lately. I’ve been so tired, stressed and feeling worn thin and I’m becoming very aware of a noticeable (at least to me) metal decline. Time to try to fix this.
* Confession time…my monthly averages: 5h 1m (Nov), 5h 38m (Dec), 5h 32m (Jan), 5h 46m (Feb), 5h 16m (Mar), 6h 7m (Apr).
Anyway, no time to reflect much more about it….it’s 10:07pm and I have less than 20 minutes left tonight! Ahhh! Getting ready for bed at 10:30pm each night will be SO hard for me, but I want to see if I feel better physically and mentally after getting 7 hours of sleep several weeks in a row. Going to keep an accountability chart here to make sure I stick with it.
| 1) 7h 6m |
2) 7h 3m |
3) 7h 21m |
4) 8h 21m |
|||
| 5) 8h 5m |
6) 7h 1m |
7) 6hr 48m |
8) 6h 50m |
9) 5h 3m |
10) 7h 42m |
11) 7h 7m |
| 12) 9h 5m |
13) 5h 54m |
14) 6h 6m |
15) 6h 9m |
16) 6h 51m |
17) 6h 19m |
18) 7h 33m |
| 19) 8h 2m |
20) 6h 8m |
21) 6h 22m |
22) low batt |
23) low batt |
24) low batt |
25) low batt |
| 26) low batt |
27) low batt |
28) low batt |
29) 5h 17m |
30) 7h 20m |
31) 6h 27m |
Results
So…other than not realizing I had a dead Fitbit battery for a week (sigh)…I made my target hours 50% of the time that did get logged. With that kind of track record I didn’t have amazing results. However, I can say that I noticed that I wasn’t as desperately tired all day when I did manage to get close to 7 hrs. So, not enough of a change to see a real difference, but I could tell that I probably would feel a lot better if I ever manage to get there. #LifeGoals