Why Sleep Should Not Be Undervalued

It is not uncommon for me to go to bed earlier in one day. At eight o’ clock in the evening, after I have eaten dinner, I look at my watch and tell myself that I want to go to sleep at 10 o’ clock today, instead of the usual short before or after 12 o’ clock because I feel tired.

I sit down at my desk at my computer or take my laptop to surf the internet, program something or just to try something. That can’t take long, I think, but when I’m finished with my activity, I realize that it’s already half past ten and I have to take a shower and brush my teeth.

When I’m in the flow like this, I often completely forget the time and that’s to the detriment of my sleep…

Through my own experiences I have found out why I should rather sleep more:

When I am not rested and have to get up out of bed in the morning, when the alarm clock gets me out of my sleep, I am more unmotivated the day, I procrastinate more and do much less. Even though I was really productive in the evening, it doesn’t make up for the lack of productivity the next day. In the short term it may have been a great decision to stay awake and use my motivation boost, but the next day I regret it.

If I’ve slept less, it’s much more likely that I’ll feel weak during the day, feel tense and won’t be able to do any fitness. Normally, I go to the gym or swim every second day so that I stay physically fit, because I have noticed that physical balance also affects my mental condition. But because of my drowsiness I can’t do that and I will feel worse because I have too little exercise.

The probability that I am tensioned or have muscle ache for no apparent reason is much higher if I have slept little or not well. If I have tension in one day, but did not exercise the previous day, this is often an indicator that I went to bed too late and slept too little.

Often my “workaround” is changing the alarm clock on days when I go to bed too late, so that I only get up an hour later than usual, which is possible thanks to my work. However, this is not recommended either, as I am tired at a later time when I get up so late. So it is not a solution but only a kind of procrastination, because I postpone the problem.

Even if you don’t need much sleep and don’t belong to the people who are lying in bed until noon on weekends, you should still treat yourself to enough of it. Avoid foregoing sleep just to get a few more hours out of the day. Because lack of sleep can lead to many negative effects and drastically reduce your well-being.

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