I’ve heard so much about how much people hate Daylight Savings Time.

Yes, I agree it makes absolutely no sense to do this year after year, even to those of us who love the warmer weather months and the late evening sunsets.  In the warmer months, I’m outside whether it’s light or dark outside. The extra hour of daylight at this time of year, or the extra hour of sleep in the colder months, really doesn’t mean much to us one way or the other.  But for many people in this country, the main reason they dislike Daylight Savings Time centers on the hour of sleep we lost early in the morning of March 10.  They seem to value that lone hour of sleep that they want to abolish a practice the United States reportedly has followed since 1970.

As if that’s the only hour of sleep we’ve lost this year…or last year…or the many years of our adulthood before that.

Think about how many hours of sleep people squander when they stay up late binge-watching their favorite television shows, or scrolling through social media, or getting more done after already putting in a long day’s work.  Do they lament losing those precious hours of sleep?  We as a nation don’t need Daylight Saving Time to cost us sleep. We do that very well all by ourselves because too many of us don’t prioritize rest as an integral facet of quality health and well-being.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the average adult sleeps less than the recommended minimum of seven hours of sleep per night.  Studies show that at least a third of all Americans regularly get fewer than seven hours of sleep a night. And when you have a society with more than 40 percent of the population deemed obese, it’s not hard to put these two thoughts together and say, “Hmmm, I wonder…”

I won’t inundate with you more statistics on the effects of sleep, positively and negatively, on our health and well-being. But I will share how lack of sleep played a key role in my weight ballooning to nearly 250 pounds in my 30s.  As a sports journalist in those days, I would regularly work until midnight and later, not be able to fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning, and then awaken at 6am to get our now two oldest sons ready for school.

Quality sleep, or a decent quantity of it, rarely occurred in those days, and I attempted to maintain that pace day after day, month after month, year after year because I thought sacrificing my well-being was a part of being an adult.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

We sacrifice the rest we need, and wear it as a badge of honor, then wonder why we’re unhealthy. Take the time to create a bedtime routine that will make getting a proper amount of sleep a more consistent part of your life, such as…

* Setting your bedtime and sticking to it
* Block out light from windows, alarm clocks, phones etc.
* Turn off devices at least an hour before bedtime.
* Relax by reading a book or listening to soft music.
* Enjoy a healthy snack (because some of us can’t sleep on an empty stomach)

If you would like to learn more about bedtime routines, or what Fernandes Fit has to offer, contact me at 814.504.7774 or [email protected], or head to fernandesfit.com.