We all know that when we’re hungry, it’s time to eat. We know that if we don’t eat and keep going when it’s time to eat, we’re going to end up in Hangryville. Hangryville is a place where we feel weak and unfocused and we’re short on not just energy but
almost all good human emotion like empathy, sweetness or understanding. We don’t go there, at least not willingly and definitely, others don’t want to be there with us. So it’s agreed then that food is a priority not just for physical and emotional health but obviously for our social health as well. Of course, a balance is important around how much or little [binging vs restricting], what type of food [nutritious or not] and when we eat. Many European countries and their colonies eat their largest meal at midday and a light supper later in the day to assist in digestion and calorie burning and thankfully, these practices are becoming more prevalent in the U.S.
What about H2O: as we affectionately call it, water? Nothing grows without it but with it, even our skin can glow. When I was pregnant I learned the hard way how truly essential was water. My doctor informed me that the reason for my sudden, blindingly painful headaches was that the fetus had already figured out that water was the source of its survival. Have you ever had a 
headache in the middle of the day and you weren’t even pregnant? You grabbed some Tylenol and a glass of water and in 20 minutes, Presto! your headache was gone. You thought it was the Tylenol but you were probably dehydrated and what did the trick was really the water you drank! After all, don’t they say that at least 50- 65% of our bodies are composed of water with the brain and heart having 73% and the lungs almost 83% water? I guess it ranks right up there with air so I’ll keep drinking [water, that is] despite thinking it lacks the taste factor.
I found out, again the hard way… That it’s the S of the FWS that’s the biggie! I had guessed it back in college when I was cramming for a test through the night. The thought had occurred to me when I began partying at 10:30 PM and kept going until the Garbage Collectors showed up. Of course at first, I blamed the alcohol and the nonstop merengue for feeling like I had actually been run over by the garbage truck. But I wasn’t that drunk and so even the hangover wasn’t to blame for that listless, cotton wooly thinking, wrung- like-a- wet- rag feeling that went on for days. You guessed it. That big S is sleep and for many of us, we are all about the doing, the caring for others, the multitasking and the mental merry-go-round which we barter for hours of our sleep. Interestingly enough, without sleep, we get the irritability that a lack of food brings and the headaches of dehydration too.
Despite all the evidence I kept drinking the Mommy Kool-aid that I could survive on limited sleep and felt that it was almost a rite of passage in being a good mom. I finally became a true believer that I needed to place sleep up there on my To-Do altar. I found out that the amount of sleep we get has a lot to do with how well our body works even our weight gain and weight loss! In his article What Time Should You Sleep? James Pang describes in detail how our bodies work after hours when the body shop is shut down for sleep for example in helping to detox our system. I never knew about the many and varied housekeeping functions that are carefully and meticulously scheduled by our biological clocks. This appears to be borne out by three 2017 Nobel Peace prize winners in their work on our biological clock’s regulation of functions like hormone release and blood pressure on a cellular level. It seems moms have the right idea in making sure their children get sufficient and restful sleep. Why wouldn’t it be a great idea to make sure that we do too?
Contributing sources and digging a little deeper:
