Many people underestimate the importance of sleep in their lives. They have been lulled into thinking that sleep can be delayed and deferred. It can't. At least not if you wish to be well and operate at your optimal level. Our bodies are designed to sleep a certain number of hours each night. While it is true that each one of us has a set point where we need sleep that may differ from other people, the fact is that on average, adults need 6 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Science is starting to show us the benefits of getting the sleep we need and the detriment we risk if we ignore our body's need for sleep. Learn more about how sleep affects your ability to manage your stress.
Many people underestimate the importance of sleep in their lives. They have been lulled into thinking that sleep can be delayed and deferred. It can't. At least not if you wish to be well and operate at your optimal level. Our bodies are designed to sleep a certain number of hours each night. While it is true that each one of us has a set point where we need sleep that may differ from other people, the fact is that on average, adults need 6 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep every night. Science is starting to show us the benefits of getting the sleep we need and the detriment we risk if we ignore our body's need for sleep. Learn more about how sleep affects your ability to manage your stress.
Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is Kitty Boitnott. I'm a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day-to-day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for"Teachers in Transition." In some episodes I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track? These are questions that you need answers to and I can help you find those answers. My name is Kitty Boitnott. Welcome to"Teachers in Transition."
Speaker 2:Hi, this is Kitty Boitnott out of"Teachers in Transition," the YouTube channel as well as the Podcast. And welcome back for another episode. Today we're talking about another stress management technique, and this one has to do with sleep. I talked a few weeks ago about the importance of staying hydrated, and then I talked about the importance of being well-nourished and eating properly, uh, with an eye toward good whole foods. But perhaps I should have started with this one because it really won't matter how much water you're drinking or how well you're eating if you are constantly exhausted from a lack of sleep. Thankfully, science is beginning to offer a full body of research on the importance of sleep and just how critical it is that adult human beings get the sleep that they need in order to feel their best and to, uh, operate at their full potential. Unfortunately, we've been kind of conditioned to believe that we can delay or defer sleep. We go without getting the sleep we need during the week thinking that maybe we can catch up on the weekend or we've got a vacation coming up so we can push a little harder these last few weeks before vacation and then we can all catch up. And it just, it doesn't work that way. And you need to be aware that. In fact your body is designed to operate on a 24 hour circadian rhythm, which means that you're supposed to go to bed when it gets dark and then get up when the sun comes back up. We've lost that routine, that, that sense of rhythm, that sense of being one with the universe because we thankfully have electricity and we can stay up as long as we want. Because we can keep the TV on all night or read all night or work all night if we need to..
Kitty Boitnott:And we often take advantage of that. Now if you're, um, married with children, whether you're a mom or a dad, you probably get up before the kids in order to get your day started and then you'd have to get the kids up. And you have to get them ready for school and get them fed and off to the bus. And then you take care of your routine and get yourself off to work and do what you have to do there. And then you have afterschool activities probably, and there's dinner to prepare. And then hopefully at least you're aware that your kids need a certain number of hours of sleep and you've set a routine so that you get them to bed, but then you feel like you've got all these things you need to tend to. It may be work, it may be a tidying up the kitchen or doing, doing the dishes, starting load of laundry, whatever it is that you feel you need to accomplish before you, um, go to go to bed. And the problem with all of that is that you're, you're delaying and deferring your own sleep, and eventually that's going to catch up with you. It just will. There are statistics that show the number of adults who are driving to and from work or on their way to errands who are drowsy and perhaps in danger of falling off to sleep and causing accidents. So not only is it not good for your general wellbeing, it's dangerous. If you're operating a heavy vehicle like an automobile or a truck and you fall asleep, you're harming your, putting yourself in potential harm along with all the people who share the road with you. And yet, according to one 2000 study, which has been a while back, 43% of American adults who were surveyed say that they've driven at least a few times every month. It's as dangerous as driving under the influence. It also increases your irritability when you're tired and not rested increases your appetite. And that can create a whole other host of problems. It can cause a sense of anxiety or even depression. Not being fully rested can depress your immune system and make you more susceptible to colds and flu and other contagious diseases. And the list goes on. Now, what you may not be familiar with is the fact that our bodies are equipped with certain hormones that are...Now I'm not talking about the hormones. We all know about testosterone and estrogen and progesterone and those hormones I'm talking about norepinephrine and dopamine in cortisol and uh, seratonin, all of these various hormones that we deplete ourselves of during a 24 hour period and then become replenished with during our sleep cycle. And our bodies need to go through a certain number of cycles and our sleep rhythm overnight in order for us to have that level of hormone that we need for the next day fully replenished as well as to flush out the toxins that build up in your brain during the day. You're, your body is while you're asleep, your brain is going into full throttle taking care of you mode, which includes flushing out the protein toxins that build up between your, your, um, brain cells during the day. Without doing that, there is some suggestion that that protein buildup is what contributes to dementia and Alzheimer's. And so getting sleep is perhaps one way to help avoid developing that particular, um, aspect of aging. And it's just important that you, if you want to feel your best, if you want to feel like you're operating at your top level, you need to get a certain number of hours of sleep. Now, the average adult needs six and a half to eight hours and it may differ for you. That's an average. You may need a little more, you may need a little less. But you need to know what it is for you and then you need to adjust your evening schedule accordingly. In my case, I generally need at least eight hours. I'm, I'm okay with nine, you know, I've just got that body type that I could, I, I need more sleep than the average bear. I didn't learn that until after I retired and didn't have to start setting an alarm every day. Don't wait that long to figure this out. But what I do now is I, I have a nighttime ritual that I go through where I dim the lights and start preparing for bed a full hour before I actually crawl in the bed. And then I read for a little bit and then I doze often and asleep during the night. And then I wake up at around six the next morning with a full eight hours of sleep. If I'm lucky enough. Sometimes I have to get up to go to the bathroom and that happens. But if you can get back to sleep, it's, it's not as bad as if you lie there awake or if you suffer from insomnia, you might want to take, um, that complaint to physician talk about whether or not melatonin would be a good supplement for you to take to help you to get to sleep and stay asleep. There are over the counter things that you can try. But I'd be careful. Um, at one point I was taking some Advil PM and I went to the doctor and my, my glaucoma pressure was up and the doctor was alarmed enough he wanted me to come back in three months for another check. Well, I started looking at the label on the Advil PM. Sure enough it says, do not take if you have glaucoma or this or that or the other. So I stopped taking the Advil pm when I went back to the eye doctor my glaucoma pressure was back down within normal range and glaucoma runs in my family. So that is something that we are on the lookout for that I don't need to be aggravating the pressure by taking supplements that increase that pressure. So, you need to be aware of what you're doing, what supplements you're taking, and that probably requires a long conversation with your physician. For me, I know that if I drink a glass of wine, I'm likely to wake up in the middle of the night, not only to go to the restroom, but also a alcohol is a stimulant. It might help you to relax, to go to sleep in the early evening, but around one or two o'clock you're likely to be wide awake because alcohol is actually a stimulant. So if, if sleep is a challenge for you, at least for right now, I would, I recommend you leave off alcohol before bedtime and see if that might help you to sleep more peacefully through the night and be mindful of the fact that in order for you to be at your productive best and to be able to manage your stress, your level of irritability and anxiety and sense of overwhelm, you will feel much, much better if you have given your body and opportunity arrest each night over the course of night, several nights in a row. Now, there are always going to be occasions where something came up or you're out later than usual. And so you, you throw your routine off. I'm not talking about those occasional lapses. I'm talking about creating a ritual so that you are preparing your mind for going to bed at a certain hour and that you are getting yourself in the mode of going to sleep and sleeping peacefully through the night so that that brain of yours can go through all of its various functions and do for you what it needs to be doing to keep you at your optimum best. So, do read up on the importance of sleep. There's an increasing body of research that talks about this. Um, Arianna Huffington has written a whole book about the importance of sleep. She discovered the hard way when she fell and broke a bone in her cheek, that it, nothing was wrong with her other than she had driven her body to the point of pure exhaustion. And so she's on a brand new mission to share with people the importance of your needing to take care of you before you try to take care of anybody else. So, if you have a family, if you have a spouse and they're all on different wavelengths and different sleep cycles from yours, you need to have a family powwow and you need to talk to them about how this is an important priority, not just for you but for each one of them. And depending on the ages of your children, they need different levels of sleep as well. Teenagers actually need a lot more sleep than um, younger children or even, uh, as you get a little bit older, they're growing so rapidly that they need that sleep for proper development and, and, and to feel like their best. So be sure you help them to determine and be wise about the number of hours that they need and the amount of rest that they need for their best--for them to be their best selves. So, that's it for today. I hope that that will have been helpful for you. If sleep hasn't been a priority for you, I urge you to make it a priority. Next week I'll be talking about another aspect of career transition and job change. But that's it for today. If you've got something from this episode, please offer a review, subscribe to the Youtube Channel or the Podcast or both so that you can be alerted when the next episode comes out next week. Thank you for being here and I hope you have a great rest of your day. So there you have it, an episode of"Teachers in Transition." I hope you enjoyed the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to"Teachers in Transition" so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode. I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at KittyBoitnott@BoitnottCoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. Hi, I'm Kitty Boitnott and this is"Teachers in Transition."