Have you ever heard the saying to get up on the wrong side of the bed? Of course, there isn’t a wrong side to your bed. In popular culture, it means you’re in a bad mood.
I used to hear that a lot. Not necessary that I was in a bad mood, but I was definitely stressed, feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated, and lacking energy.
Why did I feel that way?
There were a lot of underlying causes for it, but it all came down to hitting the snooze button.
Because the way how you start your morning really matters. If you’re cutting your sleep time short, you’re tired and unmotivated to get up. And once you master to get up, after hitting the snooze button a few times, you think of ways to get back to sleep rather than tackling the day.
There is a relationship between hitting your snooze button, not getting up straight away, and your productivity.
In today’s blog post I invite you to re-assess your relationship with your alarm clock and see how you can make it work more in your favour. After all, your wellbeing is important, and it shouldn’t be compromised. I created this special downloadable 5 planning strategies to manage your time better so you can achieve more and feel in control of your day cheat sheet for you to help you to use your time wisely!
How to be productive, not just busy
In today’s world being busy means being successful. We see it all the time, everyone is rushing everywhere, adding another task to our to-do list.
The need of being busy comes from within. It has a lot to do with what we regard as important, what gives us meaning, and how we define success.
But being busy for the sake of being busy, can have its pitfalls. Not only do we rush from place to place, not knowing where we are and what needs to be done next. But above all, we are not productive.
Because not all busy is productive. You may fill up your days with important commitments, but your efforts may not produce any real results.
Do you know that you don’t have to be busy, and you can still be productive?
It all starts with the snooze button in the morning.
To be productive, it means to match your time and energy you’ve got with the demands of your day. Because human nature is to evolve, you will always look for ways to fill up your days. In a way, you are your own source of creating tasks to complete. To win the game, you need to be productive.
So, let’s have a look at what happens to your productivity when you hit the snooze button.
What happens when you hit the snooze button
We all know how important rest is. A good night sleep can really do wonders to our body and mind. Sleep is the time when our body restores, repairs, and regenerates. During sleep, our bodies go into an anabolic stage – it means that your voluntary muscles stop performing their work and take their needed rest. All your systems, like for example immune, skeletal or nervous, are being restored, your body tissues are being repaired and your bones are being rebuilt.
But sleep is also the time when your body balances hormones. There are two hormones that are involved in the sleep cycle – melatonin and cortisol. Your brain starts producing melatonin (the sleep hormone) when it gets the signal that it’s dark and ready to go to sleep. When melatonin is in charge, cortisol (the stress hormone) goes down. The balance between those two hormones is essential for your body to function properly. You may already start connecting the dots and recognising that if the level of cortisol is high, you have trouble falling asleep or even having a good night's sleep.
But you may still wonder how this all ties to hitting the snooze button and your productivity?
Well, sleep happens through stages and cycles. There are stages of non-REM and a stage of REM (rapid eye movement, the sleep of dream). Each sleep stage lasts 70 to 90 minutes. Once the cycle is completed, your body is ready to wake up. So, when your alarm clock rings, it interrupts the sleep cycle. When the sleep cycle is interrupted, that’s it. If you go back to sleep, your body doesn’t carry on with the previous sleep cycle, it starts a new one.
And this information is pivotal to understanding how your quality of sleep can be damaged if you hit the snooze button.
When the alarm rings and you won’t get up but go back to sleep, you’re telling your brain to start another sleep cycle. So, when your snooze rings five minutes later, your brain is foggy, you feel more tired and confused. When you get up, feeling like that, you don’t feel like being productive.
Conclusions
Sleep is one of the most important functions your body performs. It is vital for your body and mind to function properly, to produce energy for you to meet the demands of your days. But if you skip on sleep time, get your cortisol levels high, your body can’t go through the process to restore itself.
Because sleep happens in cycles, you want your body to complete a full cycle and get up before another one starts. Interrupting a sleep cycle is not ideal, but signalling your brain to start another one, because you hit the snooze button can cause even more damage.
When you start your day, feeling tired, unmotivated, lacking energy, it’s hard to get excited about the tasks you have planned for the day and your productivity suffers.
The relationship between your alarm clock and your productivity may be one of the most important relationships you have. And the beauty is that you are fully in control of the quality of this relationship.
So, how will you feel if you get up when the alarm rings?
Building your health and wellness is a process, so don’t forget to get this downloadable 5 planning strategies to manage your time better so you can achieve more and feel in control of your day cheat sheet to help you to use your time wisely!
Having problems with managing your time? Go on: www.annadoktor.com.au to find out more about Anna Doktor Wellness Coaching and how I can help you to beat the overwhelm once and for all. Alternatively, send me an email at anna@annadoktor.com.au or call to have a chat to see how we can work together tel: 0498016440.
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