Why I am Sleeping More.

It's quite simple, two reasons...

1. Eight plus hours of sleeps makes me a much happier, and energetic person. It only took me 29 years to come to this realization. Better late than never!

Prior to Christmas holiday's, I was beyond exhausted. I work two jobs, six days/week, plus I am the primary grocery shopper, cooker and cleaner around our apartment. So I guess you could say I technically work three jobs. When I get home from work each day, my normal routine includes sitting on my laptop blogging or browsing the internet, watching television, and cooking dinner. As a result, it was really easy for me to stay up until 1 or 2 am, and only get maybe 6 hours of sleep per night.  

For 2013, I promised myself that I would start taking better care of myself. That included changing my sleeping habits because I didn't like how tired I always was. Plus, I began noticing that I was becoming more and more unhappy, and angry. Things had to change ASAP because I didn't like this person I was turning into.

To achieve more sleep, I have started shutting the television and computer off much earlier in the evening. For example, if I need to wake up at 7:30 am, I shut everything off at 10:00 pm, get ready for bed and read a few pages of my new book before falling asleep for the night. Since starting this new bedtime routine at the beginning of January, I am feeling so much better. No only am I more energetic during the days, but I am a much happier and less angry. 

On a side note, every night, I make sure that I only drank water after 8:00 pm. I find that by doing this, my bladder doesn't keep me up late at night. 

2. Not getting enough sleep can make you fat. Sounds crazy, but it makes sense! 

I found this article today on the Women's Health website about how researches at the University of Chicago have found a strong connection between sleep and your metabolism. The following blurb is from the article.

"How Sleep Affects Fat The authors found that sleep deprivation made fat cells less sensitive to insulin, a hormone that cells use to take in glucose for energy. Brady explains that insulin-stimulated glucose uptake is proportional to the secretion of leptin, a hormone made in the fat cell that regulates hunger. The less sensitive cells are to insulin, the less leptin they produce, and the hungrier you are. And the magnitude of the decrease in this case was very surprising."

To read the full article, head on over to the Women's Health website here. What do you think? Would you change your sleeping habits to improve your health?