I’m not breaking new ground by writing that sleep is important.

We all should know that. If you’re getting enough, good for you! If not, you should be doing what you can to get more of it.

But how much sleep is enough? And how do we know if we’re not getting an adequate amount?

Well, that’s where maybe I can provide you with some information that is new and helpful.

I recently started thinking about this topic after an absolutely horrible night of sleep last week. I didn’t sleep much on Saturday night and then was running around all day on Sunday — visiting family, running errands, getting my workout in, completing homework for grad school, taking an online exam, meal prepping for the week, etc. There wasn’t much time for me to decompress, and I took a pretty high stress level into bed with me on Sunday night.

And there I laid… staring at the ceiling and waiting for my body and mind to turn off. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy. Every time I’d nearly doze off, my mind would jolt me back awake with some thought of another item on the “to-do” list or an upcoming event at work I needed to be prepared for.

The constant stress kept me awake from the time I laid down at 10 p.m. until 3 a.m.

What resulted was barely three hours of sleep before the work day began on Monday. I had nothing to give to that day in terms of energy or enthusiasm, fumbling my way through everything I had to do to start the week.

It really made me stop and take a hard look at my sleep and what I could do to improve things. While this day was an absolute disaster — and quite honestly an outlier to my normal sleep — it came on the heels of a few weeks where my sleep felt less than adequate.

You know when you’re sleeping well. You feel refreshed throughout the day. Your levels of energy, awareness, and focus are high.

The opposite is true when you’re not sleeping well. Your energy is low, and that’s what I began experiencing more and more.

In a sense, we have compounding interest with our sleep. If you miss a few hours here, and a few hours there, you can’t just make it up with one regular night of sleep. Your body still isn’t caught up. You need to add back all of those hours of missed sleep, or else you’ll continue to feel sluggish and be operating at less than your best.

What is Sleep Debt?

Pretty simple math helps you figure out your level of sleep debt.

How much sleep are you getting? How much sleep should you get?

What’s the difference between the two?

That’s your sleep debt.

Research varies, but generally for adults it’s safe to assume you should be getting somewhere between 7-8 hours of sleep a night, on average. The number is a little higher for adolescents and a little lower for the elderly.

So, if you regularly get less than the recommended daily amount of sleep, you’re operating in some level of sleep debt.

The National Sleep Foundation has a pretty helpful infographic that gives more information on sleep for different age ranges.

What Can Sleep Debt Lead To?

Per usual, this is going to depend on each and every person. With that said, lack of sleep has proven to lead to several health complications.

In a 2015 study on the role of sleep in the regulation of body weight, six or fewer hours of sleep were proven to contribute to any of the following:

• Obesity
• Obstructive sleep apnea
• Vulnerability to insufficient sleep in the future
• Hormonal changes (leading to increased hunger)
• Behavioral changes (changes in food selection)

There are certainly more effects that sleep debt can cause, as noted at the beginning of this article when it comes to feeling sluggish, clumsy, and the like. These should be enough to get your attention and make you want to change your habits, though.

Takeaways

I mean, “get more sleep” should be the takeaway here, right? haha

It’s really that simple.

I overheard someone at the gym talking about sleep debt the other day, and he was rationalizing why getting less sleep was actually an advantage. He explained:

1. We spend eight hours a night sleeping
2. We spend eight hours a day working
3. We spend another 1-2 hours getting ready/commuting to/from work
4. What’s left is about 6 hours to do what we want, and that’s full of chores around the house
5. To get time to do what we want, we have to steal time from points 1-4

The guy was right about point No. 5. To go into more detail on that would take us down a whole different rabbit hole that I think I’ll write about in the future, but the way we live our lives is kinda messed up.

Nevertheless, sleep should not be the element in this equation that we sacrifice. We need to start prioritizing the things that make us feel good and get healthier. Sleep is a big part of the equation.

Set an alarm. No, not the one that wakes you up. I mean the one that tells you to go to bed.

Then, when that alarm goes off, actually get up and go to bed!

The show on TV will be on again. The chore you’re trying to finish can wait. None of this is more important than your overall health.

Let’s start making some lifestyle changes to better ourselves for the long run. Sleep can be a major change you make today to start living a healthier lifestyle. And adequate sleep just might make all of those other tasks a lot easier for you to deal with on a daily basis, because you will have allowed your body time to rest and recover.

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If you want more information about the importance of sleep, or if you desire coaching for how to make the right lifestyle changes in order to get healthier, please contact me.

CG