Taking care of yourself : Rest & Sleeping Part 2

In my first post I talked about the importance of taking care of yourself and today I would like to follow up on that with one of the key things a person needs in order to take good care of themselves. Rest / sleep. If you google what happens to the body if you don’t get enough sleep it is quite an eye opener. You will see lack of sleep relates to things like a lowered immune system, weak memory, weight gain and much, much more. Please take the time to look it up for yourself.

The bottom line is - it will come back to if you don’t sleep enough you and your body will suffer. I would like for you to take the time to think about your body and not in a way where you list all the things you don’t like. No, think of your body as the amazing thing it is. Everyday you get up and do things, you work, you play, and you go about your day demanding from your body, without even realizing it, to just keep up. You expect your body to just keep going and do all the things you demand of it and let’s be honest, it does.

You might get sick or must take medication to assist your body but think of what you do to your body. If you don’t sleep enough for instance your body does not get the time at night to rest, to restore or reset from the day’s activities. So, every morning when you get up, deprived of sleep, you are taking resources from other functions of your body to deal with the day. Like your skin: it will not get what it needs to replenish because your body is running on those resources to make it trough a tough hard day with a lack of sleep. I know there is wonderful medical explanations of what happens and why it happens and if you would like to know more about this please go and research this and find out what happens medically in the body and to the body. But to me when I think of my body this is how I see it- start appreciating your body for what it does for you, start looking at how amazing it really is. You will be amazed at what you see your body does for you every day with very little resources.

Please take the time to get into the habit of getting enough sleep. Start to look at what is causing you to have a lack of sleep. It could that you are using your cell phone too late at night. Also, very interesting facts about what that does to your sleeping patterns. It could be stress related, something you need to address. But please take the time to find out. Get to know your body and what it needs. It is the only one you have and does so much for you - please look after it.

Remember you are amazing and wonderful. Take care of yourself.

Roelien Van Zyl