What To Do When You Aren't Getting Enough Sleep

Raise your hand if are getting enough sleep! Crickets right? I figured! The truth is most people do not get nearly enough sleep. Myself included.

Backstory:

I have a toddler who does not sleep through the night, which means that I am up with her usually 2-3 times almost every night. She goes to bed around 730pm, my oldest goes to bed around 830pm and I try to go to bed around 11pm. This means that two hours after I go to bed then my toddler wakes for the the first time that night. It then takes 1-2 hours to get her back to sleep. This repeats until about 7am the next morning. So this means that I usually get maybe, if i am lucky 1-2 hours of sleep every night. However, there the occasional nights where she does sleep through the night, but let me remind that these night a few and far between.

Because of my lack of sleep I decided to research ways in which I can get more sleep. Here's what I have found to be the most helpful:

What To Do When You Aren't Getting Enough Sleep

In my research I have found that taking a catnap in the early afternoon will make for some of the sleep that is lost at night. They key is to make the catnap brief, by doing this it will improve your alertness, performance, and mood. The short afternoon nap can make up for the loss of one hour of nighttime sleep.

1. Do not nap after dark 

This can trick the body clock into thinking we're down for the night, making it harder to shake off the sleepiness when we wake up. This is somewhat challenging in the short days of December, especially for those who in are a place like Seattle, where the sunset can come as early as 4:18 p.m. 

2. Power up your power nap

Try drinking your post-lunch espresso immediately before you're scheduled to nap. A nap can help clear the brain of the sleep-inducing compound adenosine and gives the coffee just enough time to kick in.

3. Don't over indulge

As most of us know from experience, 10 to 20 minutes hits the sweet spot. Research shows that hat anything longer can put us into the deeper stages of REM sleep—that's when we wake up with a bad case of "sleep inertia," the clinical term for that groggy, where-am-I? sense that makes us feel even worse than we did before we closed our eyes. So, this means that severely sleep deprived may only want limit naptime to only 10 sweet minutes. 

4. Give in to an early bedtime

On those nights when we can barely keep our eyes open it is important to try and go to bed an earlier. A consistent bedtime is important to feeling well-rested, so tuck in early if you must, but don't even think of touching that snooze button. 

What are some tips that you might have to get enough sleep?

Note: Information taken from the following website. http://www.oprah.com/health/how-to-make-up-for-lack-of-sleep-sleep-deprivation-tips#ixzz554ewSj9f