3 Classic Signs You Can’t Or Won’t Sleep

There are so many how-to pieces about why we can’t sleep, but almost none about why we don’t or won’t let sleep happen to us naturally.  When you Google it, you’ll find mostly stories about this near-impossible struggle to get some zzzz. Truth be told, there are just some of us who’d rather stay up, no matter how sleepy we are.

So why don’t we sleep when it’s for our own good. We’re over-stimulated as it is by what’s available out there.  We’re all being over-entertained to death and if not that, we’re overworked to the point where we like giving ourselves rewards at night when we get home in our corporate apartments. We pop up our routine behavior—our computer, the TV, our smartphones, our gadget of the moment—night in and night out. It’s not that we can’t sleep, really, we just don’t want to yet.

Identifying the reasons why we don’t want to sleep is important. We can gain a better understanding of our reasons for staying up and perhaps solve our problem in the process. It’s all about confronting and eliminating bad habits at the witching hour.

Here are 3 classic signs you are having problems having your eyes wide shut.

  1. You’re an entertainment junkie. Binge watching is just too much.

    If you must do this, watch during the weekend. If not, avoid at all costs, because watching 20 episodes of a particular show is 20 hours of your life gone. Yes, you can say that you will schedule your TV-watching, so you don’t have to watch all of them in one sitting, but you will be tempted to do 5 or 7 even shows one night when you’re at home. Why is this important? This is because the next day you come to work, you’re not going to get to work mode easily.  It may take awhile before you shake yourself out of fantasy land and get back into the swing of things. 

  2. The sports fanatic: Watching sports games instead of just doing it.

    You’re sitting down watching a 3-hour baseball game or 4-hour tennis match in front of a TV with unhealthy snacks in front of you. If you’re the one playing, it’s an entirely different story. You will get some good night’s sleep. Sure, it’s ok to indulge in some sports games once in awhile, but you shouldn’t do so almost every other day. Those sports games finish late, especially if you’re watching in the east coast. If you really want to curb this habit, try DVR-ing your sports games. If it’s a 3-hour game, fast-forward the TV commercials and lull time and you’ll be surprised it only requires 30 to 45 minutes to watch your favorite sports game.

  3. The workaholic or non-stop learner.

    Far from being easily swayed by wasteful preoccupations, you’re the opposite. You’re the kind who keeps checking your email for work or just because you like organizing stuff. You are fastidious in everything you do. You like being on top of things. You could also be an entrepreneur who can’t be bothered to sleep because you’re afraid to lose opportunities. It’s good to be productive, but if you’re yawning and sluggish the next day, it’s no good. It’s also likely that you can drop something without meaning to, because your motor skills are not functioning properly.

We all need to sleep. It has been said that 7 to 8 hours should do it for us. Otherwise, you’re going to face more problems other than being sleepy during the daytime. You could also gain weight. According to research presented at the 2010 meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, less sleep can raise your levels of the hormone ghrelin, which reportedly makes you hungry all the time. You could also become more unfocused, and experience a decreased sex drive. (DC)

 

 

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