It’s something we’re quick to give up but then complain about when we don’t have … a good night’s sleep.

A topic particularly on my mind after missing one, thanks to a little visitor in the middle of the night after a bad dream. Too drowsy to bother getting up to settle him back in his room, I cavalierly said “hop in, sleep here.” But how many elbows does one child have?

What with his snuffly nosed snoring and the under-covers Kung-fu going on, the land of nod was eluding me. I clearly exert some sort of gravitational pull. Despite being king-size, whatever side of it I resorted to, before I knew it there was a limpet stuck to my back and I was left balancing on a sliver at the edge of the bed.

I finally checked my watch, 3:30am! Why didn’t I just go off and sleep in his bed? But my brain doesn’t do logic at that time of day. Instead I kept churning over the fact I wasn’t sleeping, imagining how rough I was going to feel tomorrow. Then the worries crept in. Thoughts that I would easily shrug off or solve in daylight suddenly began to loom and badger in the dark. I spent the next three hours lying there, fretting and feeling anxious, until I finally drifted back to dreamland just in time for the alarm to ring.

Sure enough, my predictions for the next day were pretty accurate: groggy, slow, underperforming and really off my game. Everything seem to be affected. I didn’t feel like exercising and kept craving caffeine and sweet stuff to perk me up. Just deciding what to wear that morning felt like a negotiating the Cuban missile crisis and I certainly don’t think I was the sweetest mummy all day.

Is it just my age? I remember pulling all-nighters in college, but perhaps then ‘the next day’ didn’t seem to matter so much. I know in theory we need a good night’s rest, but really how important is sleep to our success? My research surprised me.

I’d always viewed sleep as switching off and recharging, like the phone I plug in overnight. But a lot is going on behind closed eyes. Sleep is a consolidation process when we strengthen memories, practices and skills we’ve learned during waking hours. We also organise and process information and are therefore able to create new ideas and ways of understanding it. We can literally get smarter, more creative and develop better memory as we sleep.

We may also get thinner and prettier. Metabolism is closely linked to our sleep habits. A study showed that better sleepers were less hungry and lost more fat compared to muscle mass in those who didn’t sleep well. Sleep also curbs inflammation in the body linked to heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, stroke, not to mention bags under our eyes and premature ageing. And good sleep can lower stress and possibly even cholesterol according to some studies.

Besides the already mentioned health risks, insufficient sleep also contributes to reduced immunity, difficulty making decisions, impaired learning and even depression. Being tired affects our stamina and reflexes. Insufficient sleep for just one night can be as detrimental to our driving ability as having an alcoholic drink, according to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2009 they reported that tiredness accounted for the highest number of fatal single-car run-off-the-road crashes due to the driver’s performance.

Clearly we need our zzz’s, so how much is enough?

The average adult requirements vary slightly from person to person but according to the National Institutes of Health in the US, most healthy adults need between seven and eight hours of sleep per night to function at their best. Children and teens need even more.

But for those of us who have been operating on a chronic lack of sleep, we also carry with us a sleep debt. We need to make up for hours missed in the past to bring our account to balance, and it seems just an extra hour on the weekend (I’m guessing if you don’t have children and this is actually possible) doesn’t cut it. We should be adding an extra hour or two per night to pay this off say, Melinda Smith, M.A., Lawrence Robinson, and Robert Segal, M.A. in their Helpguide.org article entitled, ‘How Much Sleep Do You Need?’

Here are some tips I’ve found for getting a better night’s sleep:

Create a consistent bedtime routine. Stick to a regular sleep schedule and create a habit of relaxing rituals before bed each night so that the body gets used to knowing when to wind down ready for sleep. Avoid stimulating activities like exercise (or horror movies), even watching the news or looking at our ‘To Do’ list can raise the blood pressure. Some deep breathing, very gentle stretches and progressive muscle relaxation can be great ways to calm the body for rest.

Switch off and dim. Artificial lights, bright overheads even computer screens and televisions can throw off our circadian rhythm (our biological clock) which recognises that ‘dark is sleep time’. Switching screens off an hour or so before bed helps the body prepare and lowering lights creates a more natural transition towards slumber. Similarly, bright lights in the morning help stimulate the body into awake mode.

Obviously what we eat and drink plays a role. Caffeine and alcohol before bed will hinder good sleep, so will too full a stomach. However, if you are hungry, one website recommended a late night snoozy snack of cottage cheese and bananas as a source of the protein tryptophan, which helps aid sleep.

If you wake in the night, the advice is to ‘stay out of our heads’. If there is a nagging thought or idea, write a brief note about it (in dim light) to deal with in the morning. Otherwise concentrate on feelings in the body and relaxing. If we take the pressure off and make relaxation the goal, not sleep, we can at least focus on resting. Visualising a peaceful, restful place can also help ward off those night worries.

We can even use our sleep for personal development. According to author Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, “the last thought you have in your mind can last up to four hours in your subconscious mind. That’s four hours of programming from just one moment of contemplation prior to going into your unconscious state.” He suggests we spend some time before bed considering all the good things we want to programme ourselves with and let sleep do its job to improve us.

For our health, well-being and overall success in the waking world, it seems a good night’s sleep plays an invaluable part — so pull down the eye-mask and hang up he ‘do not disturb’ sign. Good night, sleep tight!

Julia Pitt is a trained Success Coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on (441) 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.