CHANGE IS THE POINT

A good night’s sleep will change who you are.

You can wake up one day after a terrible one and be the most insufferable person because of it. You look towards your peers and resent them, thinking “why are they so obnoxiously cheerful”.

You ‘will’ your way through the day. One task takes an immense degree of willpower and you have to conjure every ounce of motivation to see it through. Then you move onto the next task and the next, all the while feeling more and more depleted.

Training is a drag. You remind yourself that you actually pay to do so; it is meant to make you feel good about yourself. These days however, you feel like training enhances your petty insecurities and grandstands all your weaknesses. 

Then you have a good sleep…

You awake and your outlook is dramatically different. You are wearing rose coloured glasses and instead of needing 250mg of caffeine to wipe the sleep from your eyes, a cool glass of water is perfectly appropriate. 

While the day prior was an endless cycle; dragging your feet from one menial task to the next, today you have a spring in your step, as you glide effortlessly throughout the morning and navigate your daily responsibilities with poise. 

Really, you don’t feel you need to warm up at the gym. As a matter of fact, just looking at the workout delivers a jolt of excitement and primes your nervous system perfectly for the next hour. 

You may not  PR, but you leave the gym, patting yourself on the back on the way out; you know you made some genuine progress today. 

String a couple of days together in either of these scenarios, and your being begins to look dramatically different. 

Sleep is necessary for enhancing your recovery, or maximising your productivity. We’ve had this message well and truly rammed down our throats by now. 

But perhaps more importantly, getting a good night’s sleep makes you less loathsome and a better person to be around. It’s not always the physical effects that are the most profound; it’s the ones on your psychology and character. 

A well rested human is generally more likeable, empathetic and kind, while the sleep deprived are short, negative and despicable.

Which would you rather be?

In this sense, getting a good night’s sleep seems fairly straightforward. 

Maybe you can afford to make some concessions with your recovery and performance in the gym. 

But when it comes to who you are or the person you wish to be, the stakes are a little higher. So get a good sleep. You’ll be a better person because of it.