Terri Ramsey Beavers There are all sorts of great lengths people go to in order to try and reduce the amount of stress they experience on an everyday basis – and to help them to better deal with highly stressful situations that they may have found themselves in.
In some cases, particular activities and courses of action may be directly necessary in order to help resolve a difficult situation that you are confronted by.
For example, if you’ve been subject to an instance of medical malpractice, then contacting medical malpractice attorneys is certainly something you should look into.
In perhaps most cases, though, people are really trying to push back against chronic stress, not the acute stress that occurs as a result of a particular situation or issue.
To this end, you may choose to look into aromatherapy, a regular yoga routine, or a wide variety of other things.
But what if simply getting more – and better quality – sleep could contribute significantly to making your life less stressful?
Here are a few ways in which it really can.
By improving your problem-solving skills
According to influential sleep researchers, including Matthew Walker, individuals who are sleep deprived show all sorts of negative effects as a result of their sleep deprivation – including things like significantly impaired immune function, and also diminished problem-solving skills.
When you aren’t getting as much sleep as you should be – and especially when you’re not getting as much high-quality sleep as you should be – it appears to be the case that you will simply find yourself being less capable of actually resolving the issues that you are confronted by on a day-to-day basis.
With diminished problem-solving skills, tasks will take longer to deal with, and even situations that should’ve been relatively uncomplicated and low-stress to begin with, are likely to end up becoming significantly more stressful.
By improve problem solving skills as a result of more and better sleep, however, the opposite situation occurs – and you are likely to find that various problems become much easier to resolve, in many cases.
By reducing your natural stress response
Getting enough high quality sleep seems to actually have stress-busting powers in and of itself, as individuals who are sleep deprived appear to experience automatically elevated stress levels.
In fact, not only are sleep deprived individuals like to be more stressed at a baseline level, but research has also found that individuals who are sleep deprived seem to consistently rate people’s facial expressions and behaviours as significantly more hostile than they actually are.
If you find that you are consistently stressed at a baseline level, in particular, making a point of improving and increasing your sleep may make a major difference directly.
By giving you more energy, and helping you to achieve more, on a daily basis
Here’s an obvious point – getting more and better sleep simply gives you more energy, and allows you to experience a greater sense of middle clarity, focus, and direction, as well.
Everyone is aware that being exhausted isn’t great when it comes to living an energetic and productive life.
Believe it or not, copious amounts of caffeine are not a real substitute for sleep.
With more energy and productivity as a result of more sleep, you’ll be in a better position to stay on top of stressful situations overall.