Welcome to Day 4 of Sleekgeek’s free 30-Day You Healthy Habits Challenge!
Each day for 30 days we give you 1 habit to complete in order to help you eat, move, think, or sleep better.
Today’s task is to have no caffeine after 1pm:
Adequate quality sleep is very important to health, weight-loss and hormone cycles. That is good.
Caffeine reduces the quality of your sleep. It can take many hours to leave the body. That is not good.
Sleep is just as important as nutrition and exercise when it comes to improving your health, performance, and body composition. Good sleep helps our bodies and minds recover, keeping us lean, happy, mentally focused, and healthy. But chronically bad sleep packs on body fat, messes with your hormones, speeds up ageing, ramps up risks of chronic illnesses and drains our brain.
Genuinely restful and restorative sleep comes from deep sleep.
Caffeine is not just your coffee. Avoid energy drinks, specific teas such as green tea and even some sweets and chocolates. If you take any gym supplements such as pre-workouts and fat-burners those are likely to contain caffeine. Read your labels.
Helpful tips:
Taper caffeine as the day progresses. Start your day with your most highly caffeinated beverage and ease up on the caffeine as the morning goes on. First thing in the morning is likely when you’ll crave caffeine the most, and when it can do you the most good in terms of boosting energy and shaking off the effects of a night’s sleep. Switch over to tea or decaffeinated coffee (Coffee decaffeinated via a C02 method is healthiest) as the morning continues, to keep overall daily caffeine amounts moderate and be comfortably caffeine-free by mid-afternoon.
Avoid the “Grande”. These days, everything seems to be “super-sized”—and caffeinated drinks are no exception. Stick to something much closer to the old-fashioned 8-ounce cup, and savour it.
If you rely on stimulants like coffee to prop you up and give you a ‘burst’ of energy consider that the more you have, the less effect it will have and the more you will need. Much like any other drug. Use it strategically throughout the day to enjoy the maximum benefits. If you are experiencing energy dips throughout the day, consider that you might be using caffeine as a crutch and perhaps it’s time to have a look at what is causing the energy dips rather than masking it with caffeine.
Before I kill someone in a caffeine withdrawal rage, why are we doing this again?
The following is an abbreviated list of some of the more damaging effects of sleep deprivation:
- Impaired immune system.
- Overweight and obesity.
- Cognitive decline.
- Poor mood and mental health.
- Systemic inflammation.
- Increased risk of death.
- Reduction of lifespan.
We could go on and on. There’s really no disease or medical condition that sleep deprivation doesn’t either contribute to directly or make worse.
So just for today, leave the caffeine from 1pm. You’ll sleep better tonight – promise.
DONE!
See you tomorrow for your Day 5’s task.
If you have just stumbled on this page sign up for Sleekgeek’s full 30-Day Healthy Habits Challenge right here. It is 100% free.
Want more of this kind of thing?
- Read our blog post on How To Make A Delicious And Healthy Gourmet Protein Smoothie (try something new to replace that afternoon coffee).
- Read our blog post on 10 Reasons Why Sleep is so Important and 5 Tips to Improve Yours.
- Read our blog post on Why Sleep is So Important and How to Get More of it [Infographic].
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