hibernate time......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

i don't know if it was the weather or the fact that my body was so worn out, but either way, i did some hibernating these past few days! And guess what i loved it!!!Yesterday I got up early and did some "Borg" watching and then took a nap (around 11:00 a.m.) and i did not wake up until 6:00 p.m.! It was soooo wonderful to just sleep and not feel guilty! (i have this thing about feeling to guilty when i sleep to much...i feel like i am cheating myself out of something...) Anyway! I did not allow myself to feel any guilt. The day before I also took a real looooooong nap in the middle of the day and I loved it!!!! it felt so good to be able to say...forget the after Christmas shopping, forget making dinner, forget visiting people to give gifts....FORGET and HIBERNATE!!! Go to sleep and regenerate, the world will be there when you wake up, life will still be waiting to be lived and no one is going to give you the "you are so lazy" look (i told you i had issues about sleeping in the day!!!). *sighy* It was me, my bed and some real warm covers!!! I LOVED IT! I think this is a great way to get ready for the new year...rested and ready to go!!!! I have often envied the trees and animals who were allowed to sleep during the winter. No concerns, no issues (the bears got so fat they do not have to worry about eating during this time!! and the trees know they will bloom again in the spring, most times more beautiful than when they went to sleep!). Yes, what would it be like to hibernate? Well, i think i was able to do some hibernating and i hope to do some more in the future (trust me you need to try it...take a few days and do nothing!! just relax and sleep. it is amazing how awesome you will feel when you "wake" up!!...trust me...teeehehehehe).

My hibernation got me thinking about the benefits of sleep and i was able to find some good stuff (tesh.com)...

Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

Probably not! We’ve said many times on this show that North Americans get too little sleep. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Medicine found that most people tend to overestimate how much sleep they actually get. Which means, we’re actually getting about an hour less sleep than we think! The study included over 2,100 volunteers, who were not ill or suffering from sleep problems. Unlike previous studies, participants slept at home in their own bed.

According to ABC News, the study volunteers believed they were sleeping about seven hours a night. When they were hooked up to a machine that tested how much they actually slept, it was closer to six hours. Studies show that too little sleep hurts your mental focus, and ability to function day-to-day. It also lowers your metabolism, making you more likely to be overweight, and increases your risk for heart attack and stroke. So, how can you get your full eight hours of sleep?

• Don’t exercise vigorously within two hours of bedtime. Your body needs to relax to fall asleep, and exercise can get you too pumped up.
• Don't go to bed hungry, or it’ll be harder falling asleep, but don’t eat a heavy meal before bed either. Lying down on a full stomach can push stomach acid up into your esophagus, causing acid reflux and interrupting your sleep.
• Don’t take a hot bath within an hour of turning in. A study at Stanford University found that a hot bath delays a natural drop in your body's core temperature, and postpones the release of sleep-inducing hormones. So, take your bath at least two hours before bed.
• Move all the noise-making, light-emitting gadgets OUT of your bedroom. That includes TVs, computers, cell phones, videogame consoles, and clocks with bright LED lights. Studies show that lights in the bedroom mess with your internal clock, making your body think it’s daytime – and time to be awake.

Benefits of Getting a Good Night's Sleep

Go to bed! If that doesn't convince you to do it, maybe this will. Here are the benefits of getting a good night’s sleep, courtesy of Reader’s Digest.

• Sleep makes you healthier. Sleep duration has declined from a median of eight hours in the 1950’s to seven hours in recent years. At the same time, high blood pressure has become an increasing problem. Coincidence? I think not. That’s because your blood pressure and heart rate are typically at their lowest levels during sleep. So it would make sense that people who sleep LESS tend to have higher blood pressure. Considering that high blood pressure gives you a fourfold increase in the chance of heart attack or stroke, it’s not something you want to develop. Sleeping better can also help you fight off illness. That’s because when you’re sleep-deprived, you tend to have higher levels of stress hormones in your body, along with an increase in inflammation, and both of these can decrease your immune function.
• Sleep makes you calmer. People who don’t get enough sleep usually have higher levels of stress hormones, and this puts your body in a hyper-awake state that can make falling asleep difficult. If you can’t sleep, you get even more stressed which makes it even tougher for you to fall asleep. Basically, you get stuck in cycle that leaves you feeling stressed out and exhausted.
• Sleep makes you look better! Growth hormones are essential to keeping us looking good as we get older. According to Dr. Mehmet Oz, co-author of the You health books, levels of growth hormones start dropping after age 20. Since growth hormones help you look good, you want them to stick around as long as possible, and Dr. Oz says the best way to keep your growth hormones as high as possible is to sleep.

so go ahead....find some time to hibernate this winter!!!!!