Could Getting More Sleep in 2018 Change Your Life?

Most people know sleep is vital for good health, but are we really paying attention to what we are hearing? Trends show that poor sleep and the negative effects of it are becoming more pervasive, and people are not only sleeping less than ever before but are also getting poor quality sleep.

Getting enough high quality sleep could significantly impact your life. You might not even know what you’ve been missing and what you could gain by committing to getting better sleep in 2018.

Here are just some of the ways getting proper sleep could change your life for the better.

Sleeping Well is Conducive to Helping You Maintain a Healthy Weight. People who sleep well typically consume fewer calories compared to those who don’t. Sleep deprivation leads to poor appetite control by causing fluctuations in hormones such as leptin and ghrelin that control appetite regulation.

Proper Sleep Supports Healthy Emotional and Social Interaction. Facial recognition testing shows that sleep influences the ability to recognize emotions such as happiness and anger. In studies, people who were sleep deprived were less likely to process emotional information and recognize important social cues.

Adequate Sleep Strengthens Your Body’s Defenses Against Illness. Immune function decreases even after a minimal amount of sleep loss. Research shows that after exposure to the cold virus, a person getting less than seven hours of sleep may be three times or more likely to develop a cold compared to someone who is getting at least 8 hours.

Good Sleep Increases Your Longevity. Proper sleep reduces the risk of diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems, and obesity among others. Healthy sleep is also required for proper immune function needed to fend off bacterial and viral infections.

Restful Sleep Helps You Look Younger. Sleep is necessary for growth hormone to function properly and for cells to repair and rebuild themselves. Poor sleep leads to stress; this causes capillaries to constrict and reduces the flow of nutrients to the scalp and skin, thus leading to dull looking hair and skin.

Healthy Sleep Activates Your Creativity and Increases Your Ability to Solve Problems. Research shows that the mind works on solving creative problems while you sleep. Contemplating a problem you’d like to find a solution for before you sleep, increases the chances that after sleep you’ll have one. Problem-solving ability increases during REM sleep due to stimulation of associative networks in the brain which allow it to make useful and new associations between unrelated concepts.

Getting Enough Sleep Helps You Focus on What You Need to Accomplish. Good sleep supports your ability to concentrate and perform tasks requiring complex thinking. Learning and memorizing things is optimized with good sleep, whereas poor sleep interferes with the brain’s working memory and reduces your speed and accuracy at performing both mental and physical tasks.