Do You Get Enough Sleep?!

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!!
Are you having a good AND productive week so far?! Are you exercising?! Eating well?! Are you doing both?! Maybe 1 or the other?! If so...WOOO WHOOO!! If not...tomorrow is another day!! Each day is a new opportunity for HEALTHY choices :D

Do you get enough sleep?!
There's a difference between feeling wiped out at the end of a long day and serious sleep deprivation, which not only messes with your judgment, your waistline, and your mood BUT may also raise your risk of some serious health problems, including diabetes and heart disease.

Answer the following 5 questions and see if you're getting all the rest your body needs OR whether you've been short of sleep lately ;)

1. Need an alarm to wake up in the morning?
Yes....No

2. Nod off or feel sleepy during the day, especially when sitting quietly?
Yes....No

3. Need multiple hits of caffeine throughout the day to stay alert?
Yes....No

4. Sleep for more then a hour past your usual wake-up time on days off?
Yes....No

5. Fall asleep on the couch in the evening before bedtime?
Yes....No

If you answered "Yes" to 3 or more questions, you may NOT be getting enough ZZZ's.

One way to improve your sleep:
Every day for a week, make your lights-out time 5 minutes earlier then the night before. By the end of the week, you'll get 30 more minutes a night. Of course, if you're consistently skimping on sleep, you may need to reconfigure your responsibilities. And if you spend plenty of time in bed but still feel tired all the time, talk to your doctor about whether you could have a sleep disorder, such as apnea, in which breathing stops repeatedly during the night. Not only does it leave you groggy and at risk for injuries, it can raise your risk of high blood pressure and heart problems.

Some lesser known facts about sleep:

- Lack of sleep causes 20% of all car accidents.

- 27% more likely to gain weight with 6 hours of sleep.

- 73% more likely to gain weight with 5 hours of sleep.

- 10x more risk of developing depression.

- 65%  of Americans lose sleep because of stress.

- A snoring partner wakes their non-snoring partner an average of 20 times per night, with an average sleep loss of 1 hour a day.
* This is 1 advantage of being deaf! My husband doesn't wake me up with his snoring...lol! Just saying :D

- 649,401 is the average amount of hours a person sleeps during his or her lifetime.

I don't know about you but I certainly need to work on getting more HEALTHY sleep in my life!
If you have ANY comments, I'd love to hear from you!!
See you on FRIDAY :D