How Vital Is Sleep To Your Health?
How many times has this happened to you? You tell yourself that you're going to go to bed earlier tonight because you know you should get more sleep. And then, it doesn't happen. You get busy with so many other things that you end up staying awake half the night!
This happens to everyone, but it's really not good to keep doing this over and over. Getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night benefits you in a variety of ways! Let's go over some of the best ways that sleep increases your physical and mental wellbeing.
Good Sleep Helps with Weight Management
If you're trying to get your weight to a healthy level, then you need to make sure you're getting enough sleep. Did you know that studies have shown that sleep-deprived people have larger appetites? A larger appetite equals more food, which equals more calories, which equals weight gain!
To make matters worse, a lack of sleep can throw your hormones way off balance. For example, the hormone ghrelin stimulates your appetite, while the hormone leptin suppresses it. If you don't get enough sleep, these hormone levels start to get a little crazy, and you end up overeating! You can have the best fitness trainer and the best exercise routine, but without sleep, you're going to struggle with your appetite and weight.
Good Sleep Reduces the Risk of Heart Disease
Sleep helps your heart out in a big way. Take a moment to think about all the hard work your heart does during the day. It's continually pumping blood all around your body, minute after minute, hour after hour. Your heart needs time to rest!
Getting regular sleep reduces the stress and pressure in your blood vessels and boosts your heart health. With heart disease being such a widespread health concern for many people, it's essential to keep your heart healthy as much as you can. Sleep is an excellent way to do that.
Good Sleep Sharpens Memory
If you're one of those people who walks into a room and then forgets why they went in there, this one's for you. Sleep does wonders for strengthening memory functions. During the day, your brain is hard at work, processing everything that happens to you and storing information as memories. Then when you sleep, your brain creates connections between these memories.
What this means is that the less time you sleep, the less time your brain has to make these connections. If you feel like you’ve been forgetting things a lot lately, maybe you should check your sleep patterns!
Good Sleep Increases Productivity and Focus
Let's say you had a very important project to complete for work. Would you get drunk before working on it? While that would result in a very interesting project, it's definitely not the best idea.
But did you know that not having enough sleep is like being drunk? Studies have shown that a lack of sleep can mess up the way your brain works similarly to alcohol intoxication! This is because your brain has to have enough sleep to have good cognition, performance, and productivity. If you want to perform well at work -- and everywhere else -- then getting enough sleep is vital. The first step to having a productive day is getting the right amount of sleep!
Good Sleep Improves Physical Performance
Have you been struggling at the gym lately? Do you feel like you’re just not as fast or as strong as you used to be? Maybe you should ask yourself how many hours of sleep you've been getting the past few nights.
Good sleep has been confirmed to increase speed, accuracy, and overall athleticism. Your muscles need downtime to have peak performance later. The truth is, you can have the highest-quality gym equipment and the most rigorous workout routine, but all of that won't help much if your body is worn out from lack of sleep. Sleep more, and you’ll be stronger.
Prioritize Sleep for Better Health
These are only some of the benefits sleep has to offer! In addition to all of these great benefits, good sleep can also reduce your risk of diabetes. And it can make you more alert, improve your skin, and even help with handling depression. There are so many reasons you need sleep, so remember to make sleep a priority! Try to build extra time into your schedule to get more sleep... you won't regret it.
Be Well & Thrive!
With Love & In Health,
Sarah Outlaw, MH, MSACN
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