Weekend Siesta

Various demands on our time leave us compromising on sleep in order to depict the picture of perfection at work. We often find ourselves wasting away our fatigued mind and body in front of the dull glare of the television set instead of opting to catch up on much-needed rest. It also means pushing ourselves despite the body’s desperate need to rest and sleep. This leaves us exhausted and unusually irritable.

We fool ourselves into believing to pay attention to our bodies by oversleeping over the weekend. What is seldom understood and rarely applied is the fact that our body needs the regular habit of sleeping and waking up at more or less fixed hours. We also need restful periods in-between to carry out the various functions that have to do with digestion and cleansing the body of toxins.

Don’t compromise

The daily grind of life often means late nights and harried mornings. It also means a dangerous compromise on one of human body’s essential functions: sleep. Life in the modern city does not allow for a peaceful eight-hour rest. It is sometimes respect for the necessity of sleep that is essentially lacking and without proper recuperation, the leading cause of many illnesses.

There are many factors that contribute to sleep disturbances and sleep loss such as rising levels of noise pollution, increased stress, fatigue leaving you feeling restless, tensions and demands and the need to meet deadlines, and so on. If work involves burning the midnight oil, excessive travel and subsequent jet-lag, they help little in regulating bodily functions. Lack of sufficient sleep not only affects our energy levels during the day; it also leads to increased heart problems, significant weight fluctuations and so on.

Adjust your bio-clock

Oversleeping does not compensate the body for its burn-out, it actually causes more harm as the body needs to adjust the time clock during a sudden disturbance in pattern. While we assume we are resting our tired body by catching up on sleep over the weekend, what we are essentially doing is taxing the body more in order to cope with the change.

Before we know it, it is back to the daily grind, leaving the mind and body less refreshed to tackle the load of the week.

Sleep, like medication, should be distributed evenly in order to have the desired effect. So, avoid the temptation to cash in on sleep over the weekend. Rather, increase your zest for life by exercising a healthier option. In other words, make sleep a must on a daily basis. Look at it as an investment to a more productive you!