Whether it be lifestyle-related or just an in passing moment, many people experience difficulty in staying awake. Sometimes, even in the most inopportune time to feel sleepy. One way to not sleep a wink may be ineffective for others, so we are listing down some habits you can do to ensure you have all the energy you need to run errands and be productive.
But first, let’s briefly go back to our previous article about sleep. Here, you can read what happens to our bodies when we fail to get adequate and quality sleep. It emphasizes the importance of creating a healthy habit and strong sleep hygiene. In some cases, the presence of these two is enough to keep your body running actively. You might not even need to take a sip on a coffee cup.
Walk away from the sleepiness.
Our bodies are like engines that sometimes need to heat up first before reaching an optimum level of performance. What better way to fire up our bodies than taking a walk? Taking a walk before going to work or running errands increases alertness, especially early in the morning. When in doubt, soak up the sun. That should activate our bodies by sending signals that it’s already waking hours.
Walking does not only wake us up. The burn and work it does to our bodies may last throughout the day. Adding it to your daily habits could also improve mental clarity and, as a complete 360, by accomplishing your daily physical activity by walking, you get to sleep better at night, as a reward.
Naps are more helpful than you think.
Do you know that we are actually hardwired to take a nap between 1 pm and 3 pm? Naps are short sleeps between 10 and 20 minutes. The goal of naps is really just to enter Stage 2 sleep when your body slows down even more and wake up before reaching Stage 3 sleep, which is the deep sleep phase intended for a full night of sleep.
If you miss the post-lunch window for napping, try to avoid catching up after 4 pm. This will affect your sleeping habits and may cause difficulties sending yourself to bed at night. 30-minute naps or longer can make you feel groggy and not get any benefits from napping at all, so make sure to set those timers and wake up on time to feel energized and mentally awake.
But first, coffee.
There is a reason why many people would only talk to you or start grinding after getting a caffeine fix. That is likely because caffeinated drinks should be taken early in the day and not any time later. Doing so will affect your ability to sleep when you finish work.
While coffee is the most accessible and common fix to sleepiness, apples work better in ensuring you are staying awake. But when apples are not available, make sure that you only consume 5 cups of 8 ounces of coffee a day. The key to getting the benefits of drinking coffee is to ensure consistency. Setting up a coffee schedule in the morning for consecutive days negates the common criticisms about coffee that it causes dehydration because of its diuretic effects.
But these are short-term fixes only. If your goal is sustaining alertness and staying awake, lifestyle change is necessary. Start with your sleeping hygiene. Many people find coping with sleepiness at work a difficult roadblock. It affects productivity and mental acuity – leading to erroneous executions and output. So when it becomes too big of an issue, our best advice is to seek professional help.
