#29 - Get 8-9 hours of sleep each night for one week (longer if possible). (23/101)

My sister has always needed a lot of sleep. She is one of those people that cannot function unless she gets at least 8 hours of sleep a night but really does her best when she gets between 9 -10 hours of sleep per night. I am not like that. I can go days with little sleep and still be high functioning. I usually can keep this up for a week but then I will crash. Hardcore crash. Like need to sleep 14 hours for two nights in a row - crash. I had a crazy work week and proceeded to have a "crash week" where I intentionally slept at least 8 if not 10-11 hours a night for a week. It was wonderful but I realized a few things:

• It is really nice to get more than my average amount of sleep once in awhile. I felt very relaxed all week and enjoyed the benefits of knowing I was rested and ready to start my day. That being said...
• I realized get more tired during the day if I sleep more than 8 hours a night than if I sleep 8 or less than that a night. When I oversleep, I find myself dragging in the afternoon, wanting to drink an extra cup of green tea for caffeine and wanting to take a nap. I do better if I sleep between 7-8 hours a night on average.
• After a couple nights of lots of sleep, I start waking up after 8 hours of sleep. There were a couple times this week that I went to bed at 10PM and woke up at 6AM - I was done sleeping. I used the time wisely and would go to workout before work or go into work early so I could leave a bit earlier than usual.

I will probably not be able to sleep over 8 hours on a regular basis (nor will I want to) but it was a fun exercise to intentionally tell myself to sleep more than I usually do. I want to set time in my schedule aside to sleep this much every so often so I can give my body the time to relax, rejuvenate and restore.