The sleep challenge

I seem to like challenging myself, I have my blog everyday challenge and my 365 challenge (to be fair they have shortage merged). More importantly they have worked.  So now I am going to add a new challenge. A sleep challenge.  I have spent the summer trying to become a healthier person, with varying degrees of success. I have become a much more active person, though my weight-loss has been slowing down. As part of my self-examination before I took the leap to join weight watchers I realised that all that was good, but I need to do something about my sleeping.

I don’t sleep enough. The way my days go now, I wake up with the kids in the morning, usually between 7 and 8 and don’t get to bed until around 2am, sometimes later. Most nights I’m lucky to get 5 hours sleep.  Of course then you have times like the last week where I was struggling with a deadline and got less than 3 hours on a few nights. The biggest problem is that most nights between 6 and 8 I’m a walking around like a zombie, occasionally going as far as falling asleep in my chair. This isn’t a good time to be half asleep. On some days it’s the only chance I have to be around the kids so I want to be more alert.

So what is my sleep challenge?
I want to be in bed with the lights out by midnight, every night for the next 2 weeks. No excuses, well almost no excuses. Having an awake Jacob or Violet could keep me from getting to bed on time, but they are pretty good sleepers so it shouldn’t be a problem. To go along with the fixed bedtime I’m planning a fixed wake-up. This too will have the children exception, but I want to be up at 7:30am. Ideally I would be going to bed at 11 and getting up at 7 but I’m not ready to give up that evening hour yet.

I really to see how I feel after getting a consistent amount of sleep. To see if it helps with my overall energy and my running and weight-loss goals. Plus helps me be more alert throughout the day.

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