Less Vice More Sleep

Sleep and vices are certainly a little bit related, wouldn't it seem?

I am one that tends to try to get a consistent amount of sleep. That might be 8 hours on most nights so that I can spend time doing things that I need to do such as a little work after my son goes to bed, and do cleaning around the house and stuff. I could certainly sleep more but at this point in my life, that's not an option. I've got too many things to do!

I've noticed that when I get into a poor sleep cycle, there are cascading effects. I end up getting more involved in my vices than I would like to! It's nothing terrible, but lately it's been drinking alcohol (small amounts such as 1 beer, or a high-ball of whiskey) or eating food way too late at night. These things end up causing me a number of issues the following days afterwards.

What I've noticed is that when I get into these poor sleep spirals, because when I drink alcohol my sleep is largely garbage, or if I eat too much food in the evening my sleep is also shit, then I have a terrible night sleep. That makes me tired the next day, and then I'll go for the vice again the following night. It's a really crazy spiral that happens! Then combine that with my lack of energy to do my normal home workout and I've got quite the situation brewing.

This poor behavior spiral is one of the things I am trying to break most often, not that I am addicted, at least not in the extreme sense that I can't function without consuming a beer but I end up getting in an annoying pattern. This pattern then repeats itself and breaking the pattern is a challenge but it's also a bit of a fascinating thing to undergo. I don't profess to be the most in-tune person, but I am pretty aware of myself and my challenges to try and make improvements to it.

One of the things I have been focusing on is doing what I can to make sure that I can do my home workouts. Since I can't get to the gym like I used to, getting in home workouts has been a really big improvement for me physically and mentally. Exercise is an incredible dose of our body's own medication, and getting that medication in healthy doses is really important! It has lots of other cascading effects as well which is great.

It's pretty interesting that sleep plays such an important role as we get older, but a lot of times ends up dropping off a bit when we get to middle-aged and beyond. I know some people that are in their 60's or 70's and they sleep 5 or 6 hours at night because they don't find the need to sleep more. That's an interesting thing physiologically. What makes it so that we need less sleep as we get older? Is it the brain just breaking down and not needing as much reset time? Really makes you think!

So far I'm on a good 3 day streak with no alcohol and better sleep, so my mood has been a lot better than it was last week so that's an improvement. Hopefully I can keep the streak going, as easy as it would be to enjoy a beverage, I need to enjoy the benefits of good sleep more!

What about you, do you notice that when you are tired you tend to partake in vices more? Let me know in the comments!