Sleep for Boundless Energy!

Do you ever wake up tired and wish you could just stay in bed? Needless to say, you do. Almost everybody does at one time or another. Sometimes it comes as no surprise, because of your activities the night before, and how late you have to bed. But sometimes, it looks as if you are tired for no great reason. You've got 8 hours of sleep and you did not do anything overly strenuous the day before, so why are you tired? Maybe you need more sleep. Or maybe not!

Even though the majority of us have always heard that you need 8 hours of sleep a night, there have been some interesting and exciting new studies that show that you don't. As a matter of fact, sleeping for 8 or 9 hours may be what is making you tired.

Now, what do you do if you wake up tired? Most individuals run for their coffee. Wait just a minute! Can you believe that caffeine may be among the main causes of your daily fatigue? Can it be true that drinking that coffee that wakes you up and can help you stay alert, might be among the main reasons that you are exhausted in the first place?

The reason that our bodies feel tired at certain times, and wide awake at others has a lot to do with our body temperature. Despite the fact that we have all been told that our body temperature is 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit, it actually varies by up to 6 levels each day. In the late night our body temperature peaks and starts to drop. That causes us to become tired. In the early morning, our body temperature starts to rise again, signaling the time to wake up.

Have you ever noticed that you look a bit more tired on an overcast, or rainy day? Is not it a lot easier to sleep in during the winter, when it is dark and cold outside? Now contrast that notion with being awakened by the sun shining and birds chirping on a dazzling summer morning. Do not you feel energized and ready for the day? I know I do.

I worked the graveyard shift for a number of years, and I'd get so tired. Despite the fact that I'd feel like a walking zombie by the end of my shift, often times I'd feel awake and energized after walking out in sunlight and breathing the fresh air. I also discovered that it was a lot easier to sleep during the winter than the summer. In the summer, the heat, light, and sound made it almost impossible to sleep even 6 or 7 hours a day. Many times I found that I'd wake up around 2 in the afternoon and be unable to sleep the rest of the day, no matter how hard I tried. I wasn't certain why, but I noticed that it did not happen during the winter.

I finally understand why this was, and what can be achieved. Allow me to share it with you!

First of all, allow me to explain the reason we feel sleepy on a dark, overcast day. When it's dark, and very little direct sunlight is present, our bodies produce large amounts of melatonin. Melatonin causes our bodies to feel tired. That means that when it gets dark at night, our body temperatures start to decrease, and melatonin is released into our system. Those changes combine to make us want to sleep.

Once we are exposed to direct sun, our body temperature rises, and the melatonin levels in our bodies quickly dissipate. When that happens, we feel alive, awake and energized.

On the dilemma of caffeine use, think about how you feel if you consume too much caffeine. Does the expression"WIRED" sound familiar? The caffeine artificially stimulates our systems, and masks the natural signals that our bodies give us. That does not necessarily cause us a problem in the short term, but before longwe find that our body temperature does not go down as early in the day. So, though our bodies want to sleep, they can't really relax and settle in for sleep. That means that we can't get the deep, restful sleep that we need for our bodies to recover and regenerate. When we wake in the morning, we mask our fatigue with more caffeine, and thus the issue gets worse by the day.