Sleep is Important

This may not be a surprise to most of you, but sleep is very important. In living a greener life you should make sure to get consistent, adequate sleep. When I say adequate, it means what your body needs, enough to be rested and not to run out of energy at the end of the day because you are tired. Consistency is important too in this statement, if you are always changing the time you go to bed you will find that you are tired more often, at least that has been my experience. By going to sleep at a normal, consistent time and getting the sleep that you actually need (and I can hear the people bragging about only needing 2-4 hours of sleep already, however I think they're kidding themselves in the long run) you will find that you are better rested (obviously), more alert and healthier. Sleep gives the body time to do the things it cannot do when you are active and awake, when you have a good nights sleep then the chances that you will be healthier are higher. I've found that with a consistent sleep schedule, mixed with a good diet, I have been much healthier now than I did a few years ago. When you are healthy and alert you make better life decisions. My worst choices come when I am so tired and worn out, I just want easy things, things that will make me happy and that's when I will fail the most in my endevours to be more green in all aspects of my life. In the end, these choices to make myself happy end up making me miserable and I regret wasting my time, energy and finances on them.

One of the things that can help sleep come is to take some time at the end of the day to settle down, this doesn't mean just to plop yourself in front of the TV because that can make some people's sleep suffer, but find an activity that is calming, requires a little less thought and helps you ease into a state of mind that in conductive to sleep. It doesn't need to be a lot of time, a half hour can make a major difference, but so can simply 10 minutes of reading a good book. There can also be too much time spent in this activity as well. If you take hours to wind down I think you are doing the wrong activity, it should not take half your night watching the television to relax. Personally, I don't care much for the television, it makes people slothful, they sit there in front of it for hours and do nothing (which can be good for settling down, but not good for going green), my particular area where this can happen is in playing games, so I have to watch out for the same thing as well. You see, if you end up wasting all your time relaxing you won't accomplish the tasks that you desire to do to make your life better, and this practice also negatively affects your health. So, what I suggest is, take a moment when you get home, get your brain together, collect your thoughts, but don't stop for the day yet. Make dinner, do what you need to do, then spend some time working on your greening project, it could be finding a way to trim your budget, balance things out, make some healthy foods, do some research on going environmentally greener, then when you have done something productive you can go to your favorite activities, spend a little time there, enjoy your time a bit, and then get to bed at a reasonable time so you can have a wonderful sleep and be well rested and alert tomorrow.