For someone who is severely sleep deprived, I am often put in a tight spot where I have to ask myself this question “should I sleep in to get the 7 or 8 hours of sleep tomorrow or should I get up early to exercise?”

That’s a terrible decision for me to make. Both sleep and exercise are equally important to me. They are like food and water.  Both are key components of a healthy lifestyle and shouldn’t be pitted against each other but I still have to make a tough choice. Most of the time, I have to bitterly choose sleep over exercise.  There are times when I chose  exercise over sleep and eventually felt lethargic and sickly throughout the day, especially on those days when I only had 5 hours of sleep.

Sleep is important for workouts reducing the risk of injury and allowing muscles to recover from exercise. When I don’t have sufficient sleep, I lack the stamina to run and feel crappy the entire day.  Lack of sleep weakens the immune system, making people more likely to become sick — which means missing workouts.

Sacrificing sleep has also been tied to weight gain, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, among other health problems. Of course, regular exercise provides a lot of benefits, too, including sounder sleep.

Desiree Ahrens, a certified health and wellness coach at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said that for the time-starved, there are ways to sneak exercise into the day without heading to the gym or a formal exercise class.  I can’t agree more on this. On days when I have to skip exercise, I try to walk and move more throughout the day. For instance, I park my car further away from where I am headed to so that I can hit more steps in a day and at the same time, soak in some sunlight and Vitamin D.  At home, I will engage myself in more chores like mopping, spring cleaning or simply walking up the stairs to my unit on the fifth floor.

Workouts can also be broken down into small chunks of activity throughout the day. We just have to be a little more creative with the workouts. Whenever I have an extra 10-15 minutes at home, I try to do some stretching and lower abdomen exercises.

Sleep is the base on which a healthy mind and body stand. From our immune function to our mood, energy, appetite and dozens of other health variables.  If that base is wobbly, our health will suffer.

Making time for sleep and exercise can come down to cutting out activities that aren’t as important. Almost everyone could forgo 30 minutes a day of internet or TV time.  Work can wait too.

At the end of the day, we have to use common sense when striking a balance between getting enough sleep and getting up for a morning workout. Do what makes you feel good and happy. The key is not to stress yourself out and to ultimately achieve good physical and emotional health.