Along with nutrition and exercise, good sleep is one of the pillars of health.
You simply cannot thrive without taking care of your sleep.
Unfortunately, our natural healthy sleep patterns are getting worse, due to unnatural environments, tired brains but bodies that haven’t worked, an aging population, high stress and more.
People are sleeping less than they did in the past and sleep quality has decreased as well.
We all know someone who is sleep deprived and it gets sloughed off as unimportant. But it isn’t!
10 reasons why good sleep is important:
- A short sleep duration is one of the strongest risk factors for obesity.
- Those who get adequate sleep tend to eat fewer calories that those who don’t.
- Sleep is important for various aspects of enhanced brain function, this includes cognition, concentration, productivity and performance along with improving your ability to remember and process things better.
- Sleep has been shown to enhance athletic performance.
- Poor sleepers have a greater risk of heart disease and stroke.
- Poor sleep increases your risk of Type 2 Diabetes and raises your blood sugar levels.
- Good sleep improves your immune system.
- Poor sleep is strongly linked to your body’s inflammatory response and can increase your risk of inflammatory bowel diseases.
- Sleep loss reduces your ability to interact socially.
- Sleep helps the body repair itself.
If you want to lose weight, think better, be healthier and reduce your risk of life threatening diseases in your future then you want to pay attention to the quality and quantity of your sleep.