It has taken a trendy little wearable device to point out the fact that I’m not getting nearly enough sleep. I’ve been wearing a Jawbone UP since December. It tracks the number of steps I take each day, it helps me keep a food as well as a water diary, logs my weight and keeps a note of my general mood during the day. But the handiest part is that it tracks my sleep patterns.

I’ve seen the research that says we should all be getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night so I set that as my goal. I was fine over the December holidays but since getting back to work in January, I somehow cannot get to bed early enough. My Jawbone keeps warning me that I’m only averaging 6 hours of shut eye every night, way below the average and not enough to be operating at my best during the day.

I’ve started to take notice of my energy levels at work. Lately I’m grumpy. I’m stressed. I’m snappy. Most days when I get home, I have to fight the urge to snooze on the bed than put my trainers on and head out the door to run. To make matters worse, I’m getting even less sleep on weekends because we run track on Saturday mornings and a race or club run on Sundays so we never sleep in. Not only is sleep important for my work and my health, but my running too. Everything suffers!

So I need to do something about it. I need to be more disciplined and make it a habit to get to bed early. I have to wake up by 5:30 so my only option is to get to bed by 21:30 at the latest in order to get my 8 hours in. I’m taking it quite seriously too because I know I can only go on for so long before I burn out or get sick.

It starts tonight!