Simple way to lose more weight?

Hi Everyone

Happy Valentine's Day!

I just finished playing a basketball game against my 9yo son. He won 32-31. I'm enjoying this while I can because it won't be too much longer until he can beat me handily :).

So far in this 10-week series, we have talked about:

• Keeping some form of daily planner to help you stay in control of your days
• Believing in yourself and in SparkPeople -- including using affirmations if you like this technique
• How to use a vision collage to keep your goals in front of you for motivation
• Making good food choices

(By next week, I will see if I can get all of these topics linked to on the site for those who miss any part of the series.)

This week I'll share another topic from the Fitness & Health Cornerstone: Sleep.

Sleep is one of the most overlooked areas of health and even weight loss or weight management.

I even make this a point with our team at SparkPeople by asking them to get enough sleep as part of our culture. Like many things in life, this can be boiled down into a simple visualization: if you don't get enough sleep, you are often grouchy, right? Imagine the difference between a team of co-workers who are well-rested and not grouchy compared to a team that is sleep-deprived and grouchy. This is one way we like to "live the SparkPeople brand."

There are so many benefits of good sleep that it's hard to know where to start. I did some quick additional research on this and found some good resources that I'll share on my blog.

As a summary, here are a few of the benefits of good sleep that stand out to me:

• You will be happier (instead of grouchier)
• You may be less likely to be overweight and even less likely to develop diabetes
• You will learn better and be more productive (this is a great one to connect/crisscross to reaching goals in all areas of life -- one of the most important concepts in the SP System)
• Your immune system will be stronger
• Good sleep makes it vastly easier to stay consistent with your fitness program

Another aspect of sleep is making sure you have a good sleep environment. Here are a few things to keep in mind (I'll include links to more resources in my blog).

• Make the room as dark as possible
• Turn off electronics (especially cell phones)
• Try to use your bedroom mostly for sleep
• Keep your room quiet and cool
• If you have allergies to dust mites, consider getting a new pillow and mattress or use allergy covers (I do this and even bring dust mite covers with me when I travel)

I know that sometimes it doesn't feel like sleep is that important. But this is another time when it's good to visualize your real goals. When you keep your goals in mind, you realize that each small thing you can do to improve your lifestyle will help you reach those goals!

Let me know in today's blog if there's anything you can do to improve your sleep!

SparkCheers!

Chris "SparkGuy" Downie



Chris (SparkGuy)

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