In “Normal Sleep Uncensored,” we started out with three questions, all of which deal with your perceptions of high or low energy during the day. Your energy level is a reliable indicator of how well or how poorly you sleep. These were the three questions:
- How refreshed or unrefreshed do you feel from your sleep upon awakening in the morning?
- Is your morning routine filled with get up and go?
- How much sleepiness, tiredness, and fatigue do you notice in the afternoon or evening?
Now, let’s look at these questions from a reverse perspective, that is, what should you not feel like in the morning if you are in fact a normal sleeper?
This is Not Normal
If sleep supposedly restores you each night, you should feel great in the morning, right? Or, consider the reverse, if sleep supposedly restores you, would it make any sense to feel any or all of the following in the morning, or soon thereafter?
- A desire to remain in bed longer
- Needing to hit the snooze button several times before getting up
- A desire to sleep more
- Feeling like you didn’t get enough sleep
- Feelings of sleepiness, tiredness, or fatigue
- Needing caffeine or other stimulants to start the day
- Believing you are not a morning person
- A cranky or irritable attitude
- An inability to think clearly or concentrate on something
- An overall uneasy, tense or otherwise unpleasant feeling about starting the day
So, what should you expect the “Benefits of Normal Sleep” to be?