If you’re working in The City you have likely experienced this at some point.
Being busy in your professional career…
But at the same time also busy in your personal life…
Leaving you with the only option – to squeeze everything into your packed day..
Stretching Your 24/7 Time Budget
How many hours do you sleep on average?
If you’re doing well hopefully about 6-8.
But not everyone has got that luxury.
And you might be one of the people that choose to cut into your sleep time and rather use it for something else.
Like going out, watching films, learning new skills or just hanging out with your family.
Or perhaps you’ve got little kids and your sleep just doesn’t happen because of that.
Or there could be many other reasons why this happens..
Whatever it is that’s keeping you up though, the result is your sleep deprivation.
Now how does it affect your body and your ability to get and stay in shape?
How Lack Of Sleep Affects Your Physical Shape
The answer is it really depends.
It depends on how mild or severe your sleep deprivation is…
How strong your mindset and your attitude are…
How you’re dealing with your sleep deprivation…
And how knowledgeable you are with your body in general.
In the first gym I worked we used to joke with one of the PTs that sleep was overrated.
We were functioning well on 5 hours sleep a night on average and were staying in top shape throughout.
But our mindset was strong and we knew how to deal with it in a way that wouldn’t wreck our body.
We encouraged each other, kept training and eating properly and kept each other accountable.
The chances are though that if you’re experiencing sleep deprivation (even if it’s just mild…) you haven’t got any of these…
You haven’t got anyone to keep you in check, keep you accountable and push you out of your comfort zone.
And as a result…
You’re likely to slack off, eat rubbish and little by little not only get out of shape but also damage your health.
Because you’re less focused, your hormones are not optimized and your energy is low.
And all of that happens thanks to sleep deprivation.
3 Things You Can Do To Stay In Shape If You’re Not So Much Into Sleeping
Most people in a similar situation catch up on their sleep on Sunday.
So here are 3 things you can do to make sure sleep deprivation doesn’t get in a way of you getting or being in shape:
-Put your workouts for your next week into your diary – when you’re sleep deprived you’re likely to get more tired, get less efficient with work and get less excited about training. So put your workouts into your diary and make them a must so you don’t end up going through your week training once rather than 3 times as a result of cutting out ‘unimportant’ (which is extremely important btw) activities.
-Do your food shopping online for the whole week – takes about 10-15 minutes to do and you can save and repeatedly use your shopping list. This way you’ll stick to normal foods when you’re at home rather than giving in into anything and everything you see when you’re back and tired.
-Remember what your goals for your body are and what you’re chasing them for – without this, no strategy and no piece of advice will work for you. If you can’t keep your eyes on the ball you can manage to be consistent for a week but not for the long term. And results unfortunately don’t come in a week or two.
Hope you enjoyed this article. I know most people sleep rather well but from time to time life can get pretty busy so if you find yourself in a place of sleep shortage at times you can always refer back to these few lines.
