I have been working on a big project at work, which has lead to longer hours at the office. It has also lead to less hours of free time in the evenings, resulting in less exercise and less sleep. This is common when a big project comes up, so I am working on a process to launch this initiative, then try to get back to a normal work schedule.

Luckily, I haven’t had too many work related events on weekends, so I am able to sleep in on weekends! When I work long hours, I am fine on Monday and Tuesday nights, but come the middle or end of the week and I am looking forward to Saturday morning, so I can sleep in! On weekends, I catch up on sleep or as it is commonly called my “z’s.” It seems to help me.

I was curious about the subject and did some research. Well,  apparently you actually can’t catch up on sleep that easily. For example, if you lost 8 hours of sleep during the week, you can’t just make them up by sleeping 8 additional hours on the weekend. Plus, if you do this you’ll throw off your bodies normal sleep cycle. According to a sleep related article in Scientific American, if you have deprived yourself of sleep, for example for 4 nights, resulting in 8 less hours of sleep debt, you should either add an extra hour to your sleep for eight nights, take 20 minutes naps when you can in the coming days, or go back to your regular sleep cycle until your body eventually recuperates, which may take a while.

I found another article in Psychology Today that says you can bank sleep hours ahead of time, but not make them up afterwards. For example, if you know you have a long week coming up and you won’t be able to get 8 hours of sleep each night, try to sleep additional hours on the weekend leading to it, not afterwards. One of the articles I read, in Web Md said  that sleep is as important to our overall health as diet and exercise, and it also listed the negative effects on our health if we don’t get enough sleep.  Yikes, interesting information on sleep and how important it is to our health! Overall, the best advise is to sleep 8 hours per night.

Well, since I can’t always manage to get 8 hours of sleep every night, after a long week I look forward to sleeping in on weekends. I feel it helps my body recuperate from a long week! On Mondays, I feel like I start my week fresh and re-energized! This week, I am going to try to get my eights hours of sleep each night!

On the weekends that I do want to sleep in, even if I don’t set the alarm, my body wakes up at the regular time it does on weekdays.  In order to try to go back to sleep, I sometimes use an eyemask which helps block out the natural light in our bedroom and helps me get a few more hours of sleep. This particular eyemask is made of very soft cotton and comfortable to wear. I try to sleep until my body wakes up naturally, which is usually an hour or two later. My hubby also helps, by trying to slip out of the bedroom quietly, even though I usually always notice when he wakes up. He rarely sleeps in.

The drawing I used for this post is one we purchased in a gallery in San Francisco about three years ago.  It was drawn by an artist that specializes in making pictorials of famous sayings. One of my favorite things to do when we visit San Francisco is go to galleries and art exhibits, to walk around and enjoy the pieces. We bought this one for our bedroom and hung it by our bed. Can you see the famous saying in the pictorial? Catching Z’s! We thought it was nice for our bedroom since this is where we sleep 🙂

Do you catch up on sleep on weekends? Do you take naps? Do you use an eye mask when you sleep? Do you get enough sleep every night? I’d love to hear from you!

Hugs,

Paola