Why More Sleep Means More Happiness

Remember those middle school days where your parents forced you to sleep early and you utterly hated it? You detested missing a chance to stay awake and continued playing outdoors with your friends or watching a classic like Barney or Teletubbies. Oh, how the tables have turned! Nowadays sleeping early makes you a champ! Your friends get all envious asking “how did you do it?!” With the hectic and eventful life that most of us lead nowadays, one of the things we most crave is precious sleep! Be it work pressure, finishing up your university essay or training for a big competition you have coming up, sleep comes secondary and we are willing to easily give it up in order to succeed or simply to make more out of our day!

Sleep is for the weak they say, but have you ever thought how the lack of sleep actually causes you to be mentally, emotionally, and physically weak in some aspects? We can’t deny that at times it is probably a good option to cut back on an hour or two of sleep in order to finish up something urgent, but did you think of the consequences of when cutting back on sleep hours becomes a habit? The big talk that all health specialists go on about how a minimum of 7 hours of sleep is the aim when you become an adult is no joke! Lack of sleep can, in fact, massively impact your life, both personally and professionally, and take a toll on you in noticeable ways. Some individuals might be making enough time for a good night’s sleep, but due to many factors such as stress, diet, and other things, find themselves up awake most of the night being restless resulting in sleep deprivation. These people are numerous and their numbers are on the rise.

Less ZZZ’s more D’s on a report card?

You might expect so. Numerous studies have proven a negative relationship between loss of sleep and productivity. The less sleep you get, the more you begin to lose focus, drive, motivation, and concentration. Your body has simply not received sufficient energy to reach your optimum level of performance to help you successfully complete daily tasks and excel to overcome obstacles. The brain gets easily distracted and wanders away from the important things and so the loss of concentration is also one of the main effects of a decreased amount of sleep. This means that you might want to actually opt for sleeping that one hour extra rather than revising for the last chapter you have left to improve your chances at a better score and improve your idea generation process.

Not only does it not allow high efficiency, but sleep deprivation also massively alters your mood to further make you neither a morning person or a night person, but probably not a day person altogether! You know how some people get cranky when they’re hungry? The same goes for people who are sleep deprived, and in extreme cases of sleep deprivation or even insomnia, it can be a massive contributing factor to depression among individuals which again adds on to lack of productivity and to the chances of damaging personal relationships in your life.

Any gym freaks in the house? You must have noticed how your performance at the gym is rather poor when you get less sleep the night before due to a big party you attended or you just binged watched your favorite series all night! Lack of sleep gives you less energy throughout the day and in turn, greatly affects your physical performance as there is less energy to be exerted to reach that goal of a 5km run you aim for. There has also been research spreading about how there is a strong link between lack of sleep and obesity. Keep that summer body going by maintaining a healthy sleep schedule, working harder and keeping your metabolism running.

Can more sleep save your relationships?

We can all get a little cranky from a lack of sleep. However, when it becomes a habit, it can cause serious harm to our personal relationships due to the change in the amount of effort we put in or the way we interact with our loved ones. We can be constantly in an irritated mood around them and overreact to situations which need us to be calm as a lack of energy can sometimes cause us to make irrational decisions that can harm friends and family.

Interpersonal relationships at work can also be at risk. It is essential to create healthy relationships with your colleagues and boss to create a positive work environment. This will allow your mood to be lifted and enhances trust and communication which contributes to higher productivity and efficiency at work. Your motivation is also improved when you achieve the most blissful 8 hours of sleep. Trust me, you’ll start to see the difference!

How do we achieve a good quality and a sensible quantity of sleep?

A good amount of sleep is sometimes unachievable due to the nature of the busy lives we have. Sometimes it just might be for the best to stay up late if you are working on a project or attending an important event that all your friends are going to. Nevertheless, good sleep is never too hard to obtain! Read below for some tips on how to get more hours of peaceful and much-needed sleep.

As much as possible, you need to try to keep in sync with your body’s sleep cycle. This would include going to bed at almost the same time every day or fight that afternoon nap to be able to fall asleep quicker and easier when it comes to night time. This will help avoid the sleepless nights you might sometimes experience due to an inconsistent sleep pattern.

A major fix that might not always sound pleasant to all is exercise! Exercising during the day will help you increase the amount of deep sleep you experience during the night to make up for all the lost energy you have made use of during your active hours. It further helps overcome sleep disorders such as insomnia as exercise is known to help you feel more relaxed and at ease by excreting happy hormones into the body. So, it is definitely not a bad idea to hit the treadmill after a hectic day at work.

Avoid staying up late doing tasks that are due the next day or have passed the due date already and you are pressured into giving up your precious sleep to complete them. Next time, it might be a great idea to start using a planner to plan out your activities during the day more effectively and efficiently to always make sure you plan accordingly in order to assure you go to bed at a good time for a good night’s rest.

Another major thing to look out for if you want to fix your sleeping pattern would be what you eat or drink before bed. Avoid heavy meals filled with carbs which can cause stomach irritations or heartburns. It also goes without saying to avoid having nicotine, caffeine or alcohol before bed as they interfere in your sleep cycle and disrupt the pattern of sleep to keep you up at night. To ensure continuous sleep with no disruptions, avoid high liquid intake so you don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night and disturb your sleep to go to the bathroom.

Last but not least! It might come as a surprise but the mattress you sleep on can play a major role in your sleep experience. Your mattress might be one of the main reasons for your sleep disruptions. It can be due to your mattress getting too hot leading to night sweats, uncomfortable sleeping positions which lead to cramps due to low mattress support or even it might just not be of the right firmness or softness for you!

You might want to go out and grab a more personalized mattress to suit your sleep needs and you’ll start to notice a difference for sure. The WHISPER mattress creates the perfect sleep experience with a well ventilated, thermoregulated fabric to avoid night sweats as heat is not trapped within and easily escapes to allow you to experience cooler sleep. The mattress features the DNA core which is made up of two different sides, a firm one and a soft one, to match your sleeping needs. WHISPER is like no other mattress with its Silver Shield technology to create an invisible bubble around your bed to stop the interference of EMFs (Electromagnetic Waves) that are emitted from your electronic devices in the room and also contribute to disrupting sleep cycles. The WHISPER mattress is completely glue-free and made with real silver yarn which ensures the mattress stays bacteria free and odorless for many times to come.

Check out the link below to learn more about the WHISPER’s mattress and its many more incredible features and get yourself started on the journey of sleep you won’t forget.