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StumbleUponI was too tired to write my blog last night. I wanted to, but I learned yesterday that doing so could be hazardous to my health. You see, I’d gotten up way before dawn the day before to do a TV appearance (see previous blog), and had been awakened by leg cramps three nights in a row. (Dehydration? Electrolytes out of balance? Too much running around town in stilettos?) Anyway, I was knackered (my favorite word from British chick lit).
I well know the risks of not getting enough sleep, from heart disease to weight gain to never feeling like having sex again. I preached about them endlessly while promoting the book Sleep to Be Sexy, Smart, and Slim (still available in stores everywhere!). But yesterday I heard a new one, and it made me think twice about staying up late to complete yet another to-do list.
Turns out that forcing yourself to work hard when really tired, while virtuous, may dangerously raise your blood pressure more than doing the same task when rested. Yikes!
The study, done at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and at Rutgers and published in the July issue of the International Journal of Psychophysiology, offered women a small prize to memorize a bunch of nonsense. So they were motivated to do it. But the ones who were moderately fatigued had the strongest increases in blood pressure. The ones who were super-fatigued found the task too hard and just gave up, so they didn’t have the big increases in blood pressure.
Rex Wright, PhD, the UAB psychologist who led the study, says the cardiovascular system has to work harder when it’s sleep deprived, and you really have to push it to complete a challenging task when you’re worn out. You can reduce this risk by stopping your efforts when you’re fatigued. But “the problem with this,” he says, “is that it fails to recognize that people don’t always have the luxury of withdrawing effort or perhaps the wisdom to do so.” Any working mom would say, “Duh!”
I went to bed early last night, and slept very well for more than seven hours, thanks very much for asking. That’s why I feel good today, and pretty confident that my blood pressure is normal as I write this.
But so often we have no choice. We have to keep pushing at work, at home, for the kids, despite chronic sleep deprivation and fatigue. Now there’s strong new evidence to support giving yourself a break when you can.
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