Do
you make sure you get enough sleep? Are you aware that you should sleep for at least, 6 to 8 hours a night? Getting enough and quality sleep adds to the list on the article, 9 tips to living a healthier life, a clear
indication of how important getting enough sleep at the right time is
essential to our general well-being. Good quality sleep is essential to maintain energy and clear our thoughts.
How you feel after you wake, depends in part on what happens while you are sleeping. You body is usually at work while you are asleep, working to support and maintain your physical health and a healthy brain function. Moreover, good sleep helps to support growth and development.
Today's infographic is an illustration of
what not and what to do, so as to ensure you get yourself a restful
night and a goodnight sleep.
Remember: Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Thus, getting enough quality sleep at the right time can help protect your mental health, physical health and your quality of life at large. You could use the tips above, to boost the quality of your sleep and ensure you get enough sleep.
This is the last of a two part series on perfectionism:
Part 1: 10 signs you are a perfectionist
Part 2: The downsides of perfectionism and how to overcome it
Perfectionism is in most cases aspired by many. After all perfectionists are often associated with high achievements, constantly achieving goals which people thought were impossible to achieve.
While there's nothing wrong with having aspirations and setting high standards for yourself, striving for perfectionism can sometimes be our downfall. You should be aware of the extreme at which you strive for perfectionism as there's the healthy and the unhealthy perfectionism, which is adaptive perfectionism and the Mal-adaptive perfectionism respectively as described in part 1 of this series.
Mal-adaptive perfectionists, are extremist and usually go overboard with what they envision, and if anything falls short of that, they often feel worthless and perceive themselves as failures.
Here are some of the downsides of perfectionism:
1. Procrastination: Most perfectionists will keep avoiding a task that they feel they are not "ready" for, or when they feel that it's not the "best" or "perfect" time to do it. You make a task seem bigger than it actually is, as a result you end up delaying a task that you probably would already have accomplished and sometimes you end up completely giving up because you think it is impossible to achieve.
2. It may stop people from achieving their goals: Due to their "all or nothing approach" they may give up completely on a task if they feel it may fall short of what they would expect, afraid of being perceived as failures. This may also hinder you from growth, especially since your approach of failure and mistakes is negative, whereas mistakes and failure enable us to learn and grow.
3. Poor health and mental well-being: Some perfectionist will go the extent of sacrificing their well being, such as sacrificing their sleep, personal time or recreation, all in the name of work which will definitely affect your health, especially your mental well-being.
Moreover, when perfectionists do not achieve their goals, Self-criticism kicks in which results in low self esteem and other negative emotions.
4. Lower productivity: A perfectionist consumes so much time focusing even on the minute details, while you could be more effective by moving on to other tasks.
5. Puts a strains on relationship: People, be it your core-workers, friends, relatives, may end up avoiding you, mostly because you have no room for mistakes and you are often critical on those who may not meet your standards. This could make life difficult for people close to you.
How to overcome perfectionism
With the above negative effects of perfectionism, it is quite important that you should work towards overcoming perfectionism. If you relate with any of the above downsides of perfectionism, it's about time you started taking control of your perfectionism. Learning to accept mistakes, learn from them and moving on. Don't let perfectionism bind you down.
Here are some steps to overcome perfectionism:
1. Delegate tasks: Learn to trust other people's ability and if they do not seem to be doing a particular task right, you can take the time to teach them instead of entirely taking over.
2. Be gentle with yourself: Stop trying too hard and beating yourself up if you fail. You did all your best and not getting what your want is a chance to learn and grow. Love and respect yourself.
3. Complement yourself often: Complement yourself for everything you do, regardless of the outcome. Celebrate your victories for you earned them and give yourself a break.
4. Recognize and understand that your ideals are just directions to propel you through and not absolutes. A set standard for yourself should be a means to motivate you and rather not an end to itself. Commit to them but at the same time don't get too attached to them. With this in mind you will start appreciating mistakes and grow and learn from them. Moreover, you won't become overly anxious over the results and beating yourself up.
5. Let go: Learn to let go and move on from what has already happened. Obsessing over small mistakes and beating yourself up does not change anything. Moreover, this time could be spent doing something more productive.
Remember: Embrace your imperfections, they make you perfectly perfect!
