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Finals week is tough, especially when it feels like there isn’t enough time in the day to finish all of the studying we want to, in the time that we’re awake. So what do we do? We pour caffeine into our bodies and sacrifice sleep to squeeze in “just one more” practice quiz or stack of flashcards. I take part in conversations where everyone is practically bragging about how much time they spent studying instead of sleeping, as if it’s chic to be sleep deprived.
Arianna Huffington, the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post is no stranger to the world of an over-worked and over-exhausted body. She came up with the idea for her book “The Sleep Revolution” when she collapsed from exhaustion and realized just how much our society doesn’t value sleep. She recalls a nearly endless number of conversations with people who couldn’t remember the last time they felt well rested. Sound familiar?
Huffington’s book teaches that taking the time to sleep enough to feel rested improves your life in more ways than one. Aside from feeling good in general, here are several more ways you can gain from a good night’s sleep.
Love Your Skin
In the book, Huffington cites a UK experiment which studied the effects of sleep deprivation on women’s skin, finding that after sleeping for only six hours, five nights in a row, there was an increase in fine lines and wrinkles by 45 percent, blemishes by 13 percent, and redness by eight percent. One of the many plights of college women is finding the perfect mixture of products to clear up our skin, but the secret might just be an extra few hours of sleep each night!
Rest, Relax, and disconnect.
It’s no secret that our society, and more specifically our generation, is addicted to technology, making it super hard for us to fully disconnect and fall asleep. According to Huffington, a 2015 survey found that 71 percent of Americans sleep with or close to their smartphones. Sleep Revolution Tip: that blue light coming from smartphones is a sleep-sucker, so distance yourself from your phone for an hour before you sleep to really “turn off” for the night.
Better sleep. Better Sex.
That’s right, folks! More sleep means more sex. Huffington wrote that one study found that every additional hour of sleep women got the night before resulted in a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of having some kind of sexual contact with her partner the next day. So if you and your partner are exhausted and really should go to bed, but all you want to do is get down, wait until tomorrow! Spend your night cuddling and relaxing to ensure your boink tomorrow is on-point and mind-blowing.
You’ll do better on your finals.
This is the most important one this week! Huffington cites more creativity, better memory, better learning and problem-solving skills, stress management, and heightened immune system performance as the positive effects of more sleep. What more could you ask for during finals week? Studying is a very important part of finals, but it’s only one part of it. You can’t truly ace those finals the way you deserve to if you don’t get enough sleep. Turn off your coffee maker, put down your pencil, close your laptop, and rest up.
At the end of the night, an extra hour or two of sleep could result in a world of difference in your day to day life, and the items above are only a small selection of what you have to look forward to. In order to fully embrace the Sleep Revolution, purchase Arianna Huffington’s book on Amazon!