Our bodies are very good at communicating to us what we need. We just don’t tune in to listen well enough these days. Hungry, we eat. Tired, we sleep. But what about the more subtle messages that we may be ignoring. Here are 8 of the best that are linked to lack of sleep which you may not have thought of.
1. You feel sluggish and irritable
With the state of uncertainty surrounding the world right now, getting enough sleep is vital if not critical. Listen to your body and what it tells you daily. You may need more or better sleep if you hit ‘snooze’ more than once, and when you’re feeling sluggish at the gym or irritable during the day.
2. Daily tasks feel harder
When your body needs more sleep, your workouts may get tougher, and it’s harder to remember basic things like drinking water. You may also find yourself struggling to remember to eat well and it to even make a to-do list. Essentially, things that used to come easily to you suddenly get harder when you need more sleep.
3. You’re more pessimistic
You may need more sleep if you start to creep into ‘glass half empty mode’. If you have a very positive outlook generally. Years of gratitude practice will rewired your brain to look for the happiness in life, but if you’re tired, all the negative emotions begin to creep in: self doubt, worry, a general underlying feeling of anxiety, and belief that ‘I’m doing life wrong’. You may be fortunate enough to recognise it now, and if you are lucky like me you may be I’m able to sleep pretty much anywhere. So if I can grab a nap, I will. It’s incredible to me how even a lost hour or two can have such a negative impact on my state of mind.
4. Your digestion is off
“Your stomach may well let me know when I am not getting enough sleep. It will just be off until you get the sleep you need.
5. Your mind is scattered
When you haven’t had a restful sleep or enough hours of sleep, you may well wake up with a busy mind. When you are in a regular routine of good sleep hygiene, you should wake up calm and feel like your mind is a blank slate ready to ease into the day. On the days when you haven’t given yourself the gift of proper sleep, your busy mind may spiral, leading to feeling physically anxious and emotionally reactive throughout the day. Lack of sleep and an overactive mind is uncomfortable enough that you may want to make it a habit to stick to a bedtime routine as much as possible.
6. You’re extra achy
When your body needs serious rest when it can start to feel full-body fatigue and aches, that no amount of coffee can fix. If you start feeling this way, try to find time for a nap during the day and go to bed early for the next few nights.
7. You’re craving carbs
You may have already come to recognise that the hunger I sometimes sense in the middle of the day is not real hunger but sleepiness. You may feel what seems to be a void in your stomach, and you start to think about food, namely carb-rich foods like bread, potatoes, or pasta. So ask yourself, if you are really hungry or if what your body’s asking for is a nap. If you read about emotions, the brain, and the body, you may have learned that when the body needs to restore energy, it gives out the same signal, whether it is for calories or for rest.”
8. Your eyelids feel heavy
The body doesn’t lie. You will know know when you are in dire need of more sleep as your eyelids feel as heavy as lead and actually start to close. It’s your body’s way of creating forced shuteye, micro sleeps in fact. This physical alert ensures I integrate microsteps towards better sleep.
If you are looking for help to understand your sleep patterns better, book in now for a one off sleep assessment and consult to get to the bottom of what is going on and we can help you get back into top gear soon. Or if you want to read more about what’s involved in the sleep consult have a read here.
Ref: thrive.com