So it’s time to fall back an hour on the clocks. This means an extra hour to do whatever you like on Sunday morning. To some this will be more time to sit and watch the news with a cup of coffee. Others will use it squeeze in a couple extra miles on the treadmill. But, to most of us, this is a day to get an extra hour of sleep. So how does that extra time in the bed affect us.
The grueling hours of a long work week take their toll on everyone. To the people that have trouble getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep a night, it’s a chance to catch up. The trouble is, it doesn’t really work. Studies have found that staying awake for 24 hours can lead to the same level of impairment as being legally intoxicated. This is because the bodies natural circadian rhythm is pushing it to sleep. Your mind can’t focus on critical thinking, because to it, sleep is the most critical thing. That’s bad, but not many people stay up for 24 hours, right? Ask a doctor, fireman, trucker on EMT how long they stay awake sometimes.
For the average person, staying awake that long isn’t the problem, it’s getting too little sleep for too long. Parents of infants, people with multiple jobs, social butterflies or someone with an uncomfortable mattress may all get less than 6 hours of sleep a night. Daniel Cohen, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School, was lead researcher on a study that found that found that after weeks of too little sleep, the brains performance declines significantly the more hours you are awake. So for those parents of the infant that can’t sleep through the night, that Friday night date can be a dangerous drive home without enough regular sleep.
One night of extended sleep is not enough to combat the long term affects prolong sleep loss. You need to reestablish the natural sleep cycle rhythm to achieve beneficial results. While it may not be possible to always find the amount of time needed for adequate sleep, we should make the most of the time we do have. Choosing a comfortable sleep system is essential to maintaining a safe and healthy lifestyle. So while that extra hour of sleep on Sunday may not change the way you feel next week, you can still enjoy it staying snuggled up in a comfy mattress from Mattress Source.
