Do you realize the importance of a solid night’s sleep? We’re talking restorative sleep, not just bits and pieces as you toss and turn between snippets of light sleep.
Sleep deprivation affects both your physical and mental health. If you’re not getting enough sleep, it’s going to impact your day-to-day life. Experts recommend seven to eight hours of sleep for most adults.
The Problem with Sleep Schedules
It’s so hard to get the recommended seven to eight hours with today’s busy schedules. You’re at work until 5 p.m. and have so much more to do at home. You have to:
- Attend your children’s games or events.
- Cook dinner.
- Do laundry.
- Get your children from school, day care, or recreational programs.
- Shop for groceries or household essentials.
- Tidy the house.
- Walk and feed your dog/s.
Fresno County residents tend to have a 23-minute commute. If you need to be at work for 8 a.m., you’d need to be out of your house by 7:30 or earlier if you have children to drop off. You’re up at 5:30 to shower, dress, and get breakfast ready.
To get the seven or eight hours that’s recommended for your health, you’d have to be asleep by 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes for healthy adults to fall asleep, so you should be in bed by 9:10 to 10:10 p.m. This is where sleep deprivation often begins.
If you get home at 6 p.m. and need an hour to get dinner on the table, you’re down to less than three hours before you should be in bed and asleep. Plus, you break the 10 3 2 1 0 routine if dinner is late. It’s hard to manage that, so many people function on less sleep than is recommended.
How Too Little Sleep Impacts Your Health
While you’re sleeping, your brain, muscles, and cells are busy growing, rebounding from the day’s stress, and repairing damage. It’s preparing you for the next day.
When you’re not getting enough sleep, your mental and physical health take a toll. Mental impacts include:
Challenges with memory retention
- Difficulty learning new things
- Issues with problem-solving
- Longer time needed to finish tasks due to a lack of focus
- Problems with emotional control
- Troubles coping with change
Physical health impacts include:
- Higher blood sugar levels
- Slowed repair of blood vessels and cellular damage
- Imbalanced hormone levels that impact your hunger levels
- Weakened immune system response
- Increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and stroke
- Poor muscle repair
Losing just an hour or two each night impacts your health, too. After a few nights of losing an hour of sleep, your body reacts the same as if you’ve gone one or two nights without any sleep.
You might not even realize you’re experiencing sleep deprivation. You might feel your attention span and abilities are fine. One issue is with driving a car. About 100,000 yearly car accidents are the result of sleep deprivation. It can also impact your ability to do your job in fields like manufacturing, healthcare, and construction.
Signs You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep
How can you tell if you’re sleep deficient? Here are six common signs. You fall asleep or start to drift off:
- After a meal
- During class, long meetings, or a movie, theater show, or concert
- In a traffic jam
- On car trips or commutes longer than an hour
- When you’re sitting and talking to someone
- While reading a book, watching TV, or playing a video game
When you’re struggling with sleep quality, should you see a doctor? There are things you can try first to see if it helps.
Get to Know the 10 3 2 1 0 Recommendation
A sleep expert will tell you to try to stick to the 10 3 2 1 0 routine when it comes to quality sleep. This means:
- 10 hours before bed: Stop drinking caffeinated beverages and foods.
- 3 hours: Don’t eat anything else or have an alcoholic beverage.
- 2 hours: Stop working.
- 1 hour: Don’t use anything with a screen, such as a tablet, TV, or laptop.
- 0 hours: Never hit snooze in the morning.
This routine helps end disrupted sleep cycles. It’s beneficial to stick to it, but it’s also difficult. Consider the limited amount of time you have left in the day once you’re home from work, and try to make that routine fit your already busy schedule.
Other tips for getting a full night’s sleep are a little easier to manage.
- Aim for a cold bedroom to keep you from waking up because you’re too hot under the covers.
- Avoid exercise within two to three hours of bedtime.
- Cover LED lights on things like air purifiers or fans with light-blocking stickers.
- Don’t lie in bed if 20 minutes have passed and you cannot sleep. Read a book until you feel drowsy.
- Hang light-blocking curtains or blinds to ensure your room is dark.
- Get fresh air and sunshine for at least half an hour each day.
- Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even on weekends.
- Limit napping after 3 p.m. unless you’re sick.
- Make sure your mattress and pillows are comfortable.
- Never rely on over-the-counter sleep aids without first talking to a doctor.
- Relax in a warm bath with a soothing scent, such as lavender, before bed.
- Restrict the amount of water you drink before bed so that you’re not waking in the night with a full bladder.
- Save medications that have drowsiness as a side effect and take them at bedtime, if possible.
- Take medications that can trigger insomnia earlier in the day, if possible.
- Use a fan or white noise machine to block out jarring outdoor noises.
When to Go to Urgent Care for Sleep Deprivation
If you’ve tried the tips and still are not sleeping, it’s a good time to go to Premium Urgent Care. While there are over-the-counter sleep medications available, many of them can become addictive. They’re only meant for short-term use. You need better solutions.
A doctor helps rule out underlying health issues that are impacting your sleep quality. Sleep apnea is an example of one. Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder where your throat muscles relax and make it harder to breathe. Your brain jolts you awake to restore breathing, resulting in poor sleep quality. Sleep apnea is common, but it can cause complications like heart problems, high blood pressure, liver problems, and metabolic syndrome.
Once the cause of your sleep deprivation is diagnosed, you can work on solutions. If you have sleep apnea, weight loss may help, but a CPAP machine may be necessary. If your insomnia is due to prescription medications, a doctor can discuss other medications that offer the same benefits without insomnia as a side effect.
You don’t need an appointment. Premium Urgent Care’s doctors are ready to see you. If you want to save time, check in before you arrive.