Eating a nutritious diet, moving regularly, drinking enough water, and getting adequate sleep are all essential for good physical health.  Sleep is one area often overlooked in our hectic lives.

During sleep, our body and brain repair and rest. Consistent good nights of sleep, or lack of sleep, can impact your health long term.

Heart – Good sleep promotes a strong heart.  While we sleep, our heart rate and blood pressure decrease giving our vascular system an opportunity to rest. Lack of sleep increases our risk of heart disease, heart attack and heart failure.

Blood Sugar – Sleep impacts our hormones including the hormone, insulin.  Without enough sleep, our body’s resistance to insulin increases which in turn leads to too much sugar in our bloodstream and increases our risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Immune System – While we sleep, our bodies produce growth hormones needed for development in kids.  As adults, these same growth hormones (though in lower quantity) help repair our cells as we age. While we sleep, our bodies also make cytokines which also support our immune system.  Chronic sleep loss lowers our ability to fight off common infections like a cold.

Athletic Performance – Sleep is the key to recovery. While we sleep, our growth hormones are going to work repairing and building our muscles. Getting your sleep helps lessen overtraining injuries.

Maintaining Healthy Weight – During sleep, our bodies produce another hormone, leptin while decreasing the hormone, ghrelin.  Leptin is an appetite suppressor. Ghrelin is an appetite stimulant. When we get too little sleep, production of ghrelin increases and leptin decreases. No wonder we are hungrier when we are sleep deprived.

Stress Relief – Getting enough sleep helps us start our day more refreshed. Good sleep lessens anxiety and decision fatigue, making life feel a little less stressful.

Brain Health – Sleep is critical for memory consolidation, problem-solving, and cognitive performance. We simply function better when we get enough sleep.

Seven good reasons to get 7-9 hours of sleep each night 😊