The Principal's Handbook

Importance of Sleep
[00:00:00] In today's episode, it is going to be the first part of a self care series. And we're going to be talking about the importance of sleep. That's all coming up next.
Right here on the principal's handbook. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Welcome back to the podcast today. We're going to be talking about the importance of sleep and how you can [00:01:00] prioritize sleep. One problem that we face is that most people are not getting enough sleep. Culturally in America, we actually pride ourselves on not sleeping enough.
It's part of this hustle mentality that I am a hard worker. If I don't sleep enough. And I just am working all the time. And so if we're not getting enough sleep, That's not good. Our body needs sleep and it's so important. My husband actually has made comments to me that he will sleep when he's dead. And I'm like, no, that's such a terrible way to think because. You want to be living in a way where you are living your best life living and being your best self and your body cannot function at its optimum levels. If you are not getting enough sleep. When I was younger, I would stay up super late with friends and then wake up super early. I'd go to work at four in the morning and only sleep two to three hours sometimes on the weekends
and I could bounce back and I would be fine. Over time, it got to me, but. When I looked back at that time in my life, when I was able [00:02:00] to do that and doing that, I was really unhealthy. I wasn't as active as I am now. I ate a lot of processed foods. I was heavier because your body when you are tired, craves carbs and foods that give you energy.
So it makes it so that you gain more weight. So now I realize that. If I don't sleep enough, I just don't feel good. And I've noticed that my body needs at least seven hours of sleep and everybody's a little bit different. My husband can get a little bit less sleep than me, but I need at least seven to nine hours.
And especially in a job, like being a principal where we need to be on our a game and be in the best mental and physical shape we can be to manage stress. There's a lot of decisions to make, and you want to make sure that you are capable of making those decisions quickly and to do that, you need to rest and have proper sleep. So I wanted to share some statistics about sleep.
According to a sleep article from Harvard short sleep duration in adults is defined as less than seven hours of sleep in 24 hours. So again, that. Average [00:03:00] ranges between seven and nine hours a night. The American psychological association did laboratory experiments on the effects of sleep debt provision. And they have shown that failing to get enough sleep dramatically, impairs your memory and your concentration.
And it increases levels of stress, hormones, and it disrupts the body's normal metabolism. So think about as a principal, all the things that you have to remember throughout the day, and if your sleep is impairing your memory that affects your job so much. So you need to make sure that you are getting enough sleep a study by David Dinges found that people who got fewer than eight hours of sleep per night. I showed pronounced, cognitive and physiological deficits, including memory impairment. A reduced ability to make decisions in dramatic lapses in attention. And we see that too.
I know for me, if I don't have enough sleep, my attention span is terrible. A study from Harvard says it sleep helps to process your thoughts from the day. As well as store memories. So that's where that [00:04:00] memory component comes in. So a lack of good quality sleep can lead to difficulty focusing and thinking clearly. .
The international journal of occupational medicine and environmental health said the tolerated minimum sleep time is approximately six hours.
Although for some individuals maintaining such sleep time, over several days may result in a lower effectiveness of work performance. Also they say moderate fatigue after 20 to 25 hours of sleeplessness. In pairs, task performance to an extent. Comparable with that caused by alcohol intoxication at the level of the point when a blood alcohol concentration.
So pretty crazy that you are like someone who has been drinking alcohol, if you do not get enough sleep. So sleep is so important. There's so much research out there. And I think, it's really important that we, as leaders of the building know this information and we model it for our staff.
I remember a couple of years ago, I actually shared with my staff the importance of sleep, because if we see all of those [00:05:00] impacts. And think about what it does for us as adults. Imagine kids. I know so many kids. Who are not getting enough sleep at night. And so making sure that we're getting this message out to not only our staff, but to parents is really important.
I just want to summarize what the research studies are saying, what happens when we don't get enough sleep. We have reduced cognitive functions, such as attention, concentration, problem solving, and decision-making. We have more mood swings, irritability and heightened emotional reactivity.
It's hard to have emotional regulation when your body is sleep deprived. Also reduced immune function and it hinders your body's ability to fight off infections and illnesses. Weight gain due to disrupting the balance of hunger related hormones, which make you hungrier when you don't sleep, you crave those. Sugary carby foods to keep you awake and then higher risk of accidents and mistakes, including driving impaired memory and impaired learning because of lack of sleep can hinder the brain's ability to process [00:06:00] and retain new information effectively. And then of course you have an increased risk of mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety.
So sleep impacts everything in your body. It impacts your brain. And it's so important that we improve our sleep. Today, what I wanted to do is give you a few tips for improving your sleep, because we know that sleep is so important. We know that it helps our bodies.
If you love to exercise, that helps our bodies recover from exercise. Having sleep helps repair our bodies. It's. Crucial for us to have sleep. And so I want to now talk about how can we improve our sleep so first make sleep a priority. No. The reasons that sleep is so important and make it a priority when you know what it does for your body, it's hard not to make it a priority.
So make sure you're getting at least seven to nine hours a day. And that might mean going to bed earlier. So for me, I like to get up early and do my workouts in the morning. And so I get up at five o'clock. So for me to get [00:07:00] seven to nine hours, I have to be in bed by 10 o'clock. Which sounds easy, but it's not, when you're saying you have to be asleep by 10 o'clock.
So that 10 to five gives me seven hours. So really I'm trying to get in bed by nine. So by the time I wind down and go to bed, It's 10 o'clock and I'm at least getting that seven hours. So making sure that you are scheduling that out. So you are getting seven to nine hours a day. Also making sure to go to bed at the same time each night and have a bedtime routine, having a routine. Helps your body know that it's almost time for bed.
So doing the same thing, whether it's reading a book journaling. I try to think of things that you can do and make a nighttime routine of that aren't related to technology because the next way to improve your sleep is to avoid screens before bed. There's so much research out there about how screens impact your sleep.
According to Sean Stevenson, who has a book about sleep that I'll recommend in a few minutes, the blue light that screens give off trigger your body to [00:08:00] produce cortisol, and it keeps you up. So it disorients the body's natural preparation for sleep. And it keeps you up. Seeing those blue lights.
Also looking at electronics causes mental stimulation, which makes it harder to shut down for the night. We can spend so much time scrolling on Instagram or Facebook, where we get hooked into it, and then we're losing an hour of sleep because we're too busy scrolling on our phone.
It it's made to be addictive. Technology was made to be addictive. And so if you get started before bed, it is really gonna be hard. It takes a lot of discipline to get off. And then also those blue lights impact your ability to sleep. Also,, they talk about the importance of getting sunlight throughout the day to then help your sleep.
It helps your natural circadian rhythms. So it's the circadian rhythm is your body's 24 hour clock. And so our bodies naturally look for patterns of light and darkness for sleep. So you want to make sure that, you're getting natural sunlight during the day, and you're sleeping in a nice [00:09:00] dark room because light in your bedroom.
If you sleep with the TV on, it messes with the circadian rhythms of your body. So your body might not register that it's time to sleep. Having daylight and then having the dark room, I've also read where if if you go outside and try to get sunlight within the first and try to get natural sunlight within the first 20 minutes of your day, that's really good for sleep in the future. So making sure that you're getting sunlight throughout the day, you're sleeping in a dark room. Also limiting alcohol consumption before bed.
People think that alcohol helps them sleep. It may help you fall asleep quickly, but what it does is it actually messes with your REM cycle, which gives you poor quality sleep. So you wake up feeling tired. And I've noticed this more as I've gotten older that I, if I have alcohol in, right anytime within an hour, probably before going to bed. I do fall asleep quickly, but I'm getting up throughout the night where I wake up and I still feel tired, even if I felt like I slept, okay.
I wake up feeling tired because [00:10:00] that is messing with your quality of sleep. And I definitely have noticed that for myself. So making sure I've read before to having, if you're going to drink, have a drink like happy hour time is the best time to have a drink because you're then able to go to bed better, and have a better night's sleep.
So limiting that alcohol consumption before bed. Also exercises, another way to help with sleep consistent exercise helps with the quality of your sleep. So if you have trouble sleeping, making sure that you're exercising. Be mindful of when you exercise, I know people who like to exercise late in the evenings. You know, sometimes your adrenaline's up from exercising and it's harder than to fall asleep. For me personally, I exercise earlier in the day.
And so then by the evening, I'm able to sleep really well. But if I exercise that even six or seven at night, it is harder for me to sleep. So be mindful of that and know yourself and what works for your body. I was talking about Sean Stevenson. He has an amazing book called sleep smarter. And in this book, he really dives [00:11:00] into all the different ways. That you can help your body sleep better.
And he talks about the importance of sleep. And so if you want to dive deeper into this topic, it's such an important one for you to dive into. If you want to focus on reducing stress and being a healthier person. Prioritize your sleep start with fixing your sleep and making sure that you're getting enough. Because, like I said so often in this country and the United States, especially we are not getting enough sleep.
And it's culturally something that we do, I've read about really highly successful entrepreneurs who don't even go places in the evenings. They don't go to parties. They don't go to dinners anywhere because they go to bed so early and they don't want to mess with their bedtime routine. That that's how much they prioritize their sleep to make sure that they are. Getting enough to rest and recover and restore their memories so that they're creative and coming up with ideas the next day.
So, Sleep is huge and I just want you to. Really reflect on how much sleep [00:12:00] you're getting. And then also, like I said, talk to your teachers about this topic. Let parents know the information about why sleep's so important. And I always tell my teachers, if we have kids sleeping during the day, let them sleep.
If they are tired, there's no way that they're going to be able to focus on learning. So make sure that you are prioritizing this for yourself and modeling this for other people. And this episode is part one of a self care series. And so I encourage you this summer to really focus on your self-care.
The summer is a great time to focus on self care, get your health in check so you can model for your staff so you can feel better. So you can be the best version of yourself. So when you go back to school, you have these habits, you have the routines in place, and you're able to lead and be your best self because the more you sleep and you focus on your self care, the better leader you're going. To be.
So I hope that you found this topic of sleep helpful. I hope you have some takeaways on how you want to try to improve your [00:13:00] sleep. Next week. We're going to be talking about the importance of moving more. How long with exercise those two together. And if you found this helpful, I'd love for you to reach out and let me know on Instagram, or make sure to leave a review of the show.
If you are interested in one-on-one coaching, I would love the opportunity to work with you. I have a link to schedule a session with me. I do free consultations where we can talk about what life coaching would look like for you and decide if we would be a good fit to work together. You can do that by scheduling an appointment in the Calendly link. in the show notes.
So keep in mind that you do have the power to shape your life. According to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.
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