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Five Ways Sleep Deprivation Affects Motivation

Sleep

Sleep is a very important part of life. Getting quality sleep is necessary for us to be able to perform our day to day tasks. Without sleep, our bodies are not able to perform at top-notch. While most people talk about the benefits of getting good sleep, people often don't hear much about the dangers of not getting enough of it. In this article, we will discuss 5 ways that sleep deprivation can negatively affect your motivation.

Makes you tired and not able to focus on goals

One of the biggest and most obvious side effects of sleep deprivation is that you will be tired. When it comes to staying motivated, being tired is not something that is going to help you. When you are tired, you are much less motivated. Sleepiness can cause you to care less about the goals that you need or want to achieve. When you are deprived of sleep, your goals are much harder to address. You will either not be able to function well enough to work towards them, or you simply will not care enough or be in the mood to do it. All in all, this is one of the negative effects of sleep deprivation.

Affects your mood and people around you

Another consequence of sleep deprivation is that it drastically affects your mood. No, sleep deprivation does not affect your mood in a good way, it makes you grumpy. Having a lack of sleep causes you to develop a negative mood and mindset. In result, it may affect the people around you as well. Teamwork is a big part of staying motivated and reaching new goals. When you are in a bad mood, it not only affects your participation in teamwork, but it may also decrease the motivation of the people around you.

Affects your memory so you're not able to pick up / retain information, new ideas

Another way that sleep deprivation can impact your motivation is that it affects your memory. Sleep is not only necessary for your physical health, but also your mental health. When you are tired or groggy due to a lack of sleep, you will have a much harder time retaining and learning new information. In life, the only way to grow and expand your mind is to learn new ideas. If you are constantly sleep deprived, you will be greatly set back as far as learning goes. Without a clear head and sharp mind, you will not be very motivated at all.

You Struggle With Decision Making

Decision making is another key part of growing and reaching your goals. Sometimes, making the right decision can be the difference between reaching your goal or not. When you are deprived of sleep, the part in your brain that is responsible for decision making is fogged. You will have trouble making decisions that are going to benefit you in the long run. Due to the fact that decision making is a big part of reaching goals and staying motivated, sleep deprivation can drastically reduce your productivity in those areas.

Stress - makes it harder to focus on the end goal and big picture

One final reason why sleep deprivation can affect your motivation is that it increases your stress levels. Stress is something that occurs in everyone. It is negative and often causes you to not be able to think clearly. Among the many attributes that stress affects, motivation is one of them. When you are stressed out, your motivation goes down the drain. Stress can reduce your mood to the point where the end goal or bigger picture is no longer important to you. Living a stress-free life (or as close to it as you can) is the best way to grow and reach your goals.

Final Thoughts

As you now know, sleep deprivation can be very harmful to your overall motivation. The truth is, it is hard to change your sleeping patterns. Inside of you, there is an internal clock that is responsible for your sleep behaviors. Over time, you become used to the schedule that you go through. If you are staying up late every night, your body becomes used to it. In result, you will have a hard time ever getting to bed early. In order to fix your internal clock, you need to lay out a better sleep schedule. Choose a time each night that you will go to bed. Although you may not be tired in the beginning, you need to get your body used to physically laying down earlier each night. Over time, you will begin to fall asleep earlier and will find yourself less sleep deprived and more motivated.

Erin Berman

Written by Erin Berman

Erin has been studying meditation, yoga, herbal remedies, sleep, and wellness practices for over two decades. Through the culmination of continued visits to India, she has studied Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep), Pranayama (breath work), Ayurvedic medicine and Shiatsu massage. She also spent a year living and studying Kabbalistic Meditation and Mysticism in Jerusalem. She is a certified in Astanga/Vinyasa Yoga 200YTT, Reiki practitioner initiated in Usui Reiki lineage, and Cranial Sacral Therapy through the Upledger Institute. As Director of Content at NECTER she works to bring the NECTAR mission to incorporate healthy sleep as a critical component of lifestyle and wellness into our community's lives. She truly believes in the saying that "health is wealth," and experiencing the bliss of deep, restful sleep is priceless.

Read more posts by Erin Berman

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