Spring is the best time of year for a lot of us, myself included!
There’s just something about those longer and brighter days with bursts of color beginning to appear all around that just reenergizes and reinvigorates us as we begin to come back to life from the dark, cold winter.
It’s during this natural transition that we find ourselves wanting to take advantage of the extra light by engaging in more outside activities in the early evening hours. As great and wonderful as this is, it’s also extremely important to be sure that we are getting adequate rest during this time of year as well.
The extended daylight hours bring more energy and unfortunately, less sleep. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, our bodies operate by nature’s clock. Our hormone and energy levels are heavily influenced and affected by the different seasons. For example, during the winter, our bodies produce more melatonin (the hormone that signals it’s time to sleep) than any other time. That’s why we find ourselves facing a lack of drive and motivation to be active. We all just wish we could curl up in a warm bed and hibernate as other animals do. When you fast forward to spring, we find ourselves feeling the exact opposite.
Fueled by the warmer air and brighter sun, we want to just be out and about. The abundance of melatonin that we had during the winter begins to decrease very significantly. As a result, our sleep patterns begin to suffer. Sleep is highly essential not just for our muscular development and recovery, but for our mental health as well. Lack of sleep influences and affects our bodies and minds in a multitude of ways, from the obvious (lethargy) to the not-so-obvious (increased cortisol production that inevitably causes weight gain). If you have (somewhat) a consistent sleep schedule, it’s prudent that you adhere to it as much as possible. After all, we want to be able to enjoy all of what the season has to offer, right? We can’t expect to if we’re running on empty or close to it.
Getting adequate sleep is never out of season so be sure to maximize yours!
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