Sleep and Stress: Restful Nights Equate to Peaceful Days - By: Matthew White

Have you ever had one of "those days"? You know, those days where everything just seems to go wrong? Usually, it starts with one of "those nights". One of those nights where you toss and turn...you would give your right arm to just fall asleep. You look at the clock thinking, "If I fell asleep right NOW I'd get 6 hours of sleep...If I fell asleep right NOW I'd get 5 hours of sleep." Those rotten days often are the product of rotten, sleepless nights. Sleep deprivation trickles down into all facets of our daily lives. Sleep is essential to life and especially, to a happy and healthy life. If you are not getting the right amount of sleep regularly, then chances are you are "existing," through the days, rather than living a contented life.

When you don't have a good night's sleep, everything seems darker. You are crankier and moodier to start with. I know, for myself that is totally the case. I teach junior high and if I've had a night from hell, the baby's up all night - I give my kids "fair warning". They've come to understand what that means. If I have too many consecutive "nights from hell" then I turn into a totally different person from who I naturally am. I am usually quite easy going and I've been told that I have a great sense of humor. Well, it turns out that if you deduct sleep from a person's life, you can change their personality. You may not believe it, but I'm here to tell you it's true.

Everyone has some sort of stress in their lives and we all deal with stress differently. My husband for instance believes that there's no point in worrying about anything - since it won't get you anywhere. This, of course, is infuriating to me since I can't help but get stressed when the "ends aren't meeting". Whether your stress has to do with money, job, illness, family issues, children, addiction, weight issues - it doesn't matter...Tack sleep deprivation on to that list and suddenly all of your problems and even just the stresses incurred in daily life become insurmountable. When we are well rested, we just wake up feeling like we can take on the world. But when we wake up after a restless and frustrating night - everything just seems worse. Every little thing gets to you, because you simply do not have the patience to deal with it.

Imagine a life, though, where "those days" happen less frequently. Wouldn't it be nice to wake up more often thinking, "No matter what happens today, I know that I can and will deal with it." Wouldn't you love to have the mental capacity to think through your problems and come up with solutions to them, rather than just wishing that they would go away on their own by some stroke of magic? Cheating yourself from the sleep that you need and deserve is detrimental to your physical and mental well being. You need to be well rested to be the most efficient, positive and happy person that you can be. Believe me, it's no fun when your personality starts to change because you're too tired to know how to deal with anything. Working with 14 year olds, I need every ounce of patience and humor that I can muster so that I can make it until 3:00. Don't get me wrong, I do love my work. But, it's got enough challenges - I don't need to throw sleep deprivation into the equation. It's no different for you in your profession - no matter what that is. If you want "those days" to become a thing of the past, then I'm telling you right now, it starts with well rested nights.

The impact that a bad night can have on your waking hours. A lack of sleep can have a detrimental affect on your reactions to situations and hurdles that you face during the day.

Matthew White, the Sultan of Snooze, is the author of "Sleep Anywhere Anytime in 7 Minutes or Less" and "Eliminate Jet Lag Now". In his experience nearly all insomnia is curable. His work has proved this countless times. Matthew's mission is to pull back the curtain on those cures. Follow him on * Twitter * Facebook