Retire Today—And Every Day

WELLNESS | by POSY GERING

SMART WOMEN WOULD NEVER NEGLECT THEIR  IRAs, ROTHS or 401(k)s. Yet the self-same women routinely violate their daily retirement accounts: They shortchange themselves on sleep.

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We all think we can skip some sleep to finish something for someone else. The next day, we suffer. If it goes on for days, weeks or months on end, as it often does, we start getting messages that our life is out of balance. The symptoms range from irritability to memory loss to weight gain to cardiovascular effects to reduced white-blood-cell count and so on. And, of course, feeling as if we had just been run over.

Taking care of yourself is a radical step. Although you’ll have to give up something to make it happen, it will have profound effects on your life. You’ll have a daily demonstration your true net worth, one that bears huge gains. You’ll discover that you hold the key to a life in balance, and it starts with a good night’s sleep.