11 Amazing Health Benefits of Sleep –

Sleep makes you feel and look better. It not only boosts your mood but also helps in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. If you have adequate rest, it can benefit your heart, your mind, and a lot more.

A day without enough shuteye makes you feel terrible and moody, while a good night’s sleep makes you feel ready to take on the day’s challenges. Here are ten amazing benefits of sleep:

Improves Memory

Your mind is busy while you are sleeping. During sleep, you can strengthen your memory and practice the skills you learned during the day.

Sleep puts you in an optimum state of mind to process information as you go about the day. You also need it to retain and process all that information long-term. It triggers the changes in your brain that will help solidify memories. Good shuteye strengthens the connection between brain cells and transfers information from one brain region to another.

In short, sleep helps you consolidate and store memories.

Sharpens Attention

The brain is like a powerful battery. It needs rest every now and then. While sleeping, you allow the brain to recharge, resulting in sharper attention.

Sleep deprivation reduces attention span and concentration. Consequently, your reaction time becomes slower than usual. Your brain will have a hard time making decisions and responding to environmental signals.

With sufficient sleep, you can process information easier and react to dangerous situations faster.

Lowers Stress

Sleep is as important as healthy eating. It enhances your well-being. Getting enough sleep can help you manage stress more effectively.

Stress can lead to insomnia. To make things worse, if you have shorter hours of bedtime, you feel more stressed. To break this vicious cycle, you need to get enough sleep. You will feel recharged and rejuvenated and have the mental fortitude to keep stress at bay.

Builds Muscles

You can do high-intensity workouts, eat the right food, and take the necessary supplements but you cannot grow muscles without sleep. After the actual workout, sleep is the next important activity for building muscles.

Sleep is necessary to balance your hormones. While you are sleeping, the body releases hormones necessary for muscle growth such as testosterone and IGF-1. If you lack sleep, your body can slow the rate of producing these hormones.

If you have enough sleep, you will have more energy to use while working out. You can run and lift at your maximum without getting tired easily. You can stick to your muscle-building diet since sleep helps control your levels of leptin, which makes you feel full.

Sleep keeps you in shape and accelerates muscle growth.

Stimulates Collagen Growth

When it comes to a beauty routine, sleep is the cheapest and most effective way there is to attain the fountain of youth. While you snooze, your body continues to repair and recover itself.

The skin makes new collagen as you sleep. This collagen helps avoid sagging as you grow older. The more collagen your skin has, the plumper and less likely it is to wrinkle. Rest also boosts the blood flow to your skin which will help you maintain a healthier glow.

Getting sufficient sleep is a powerful beauty treatment.

Curbs Inflammation

Lack of sleep can lead to major health concerns. Clinical research revealed that sleep deprivation boosted concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), which is a marker of inflammation. Researchers also discovered CRP concentrations of participants who got 8.2 hours of sleep remained stable. At the end of the study, the researchers suggested that sleep loss may be one of the ways that activate inflammatory processes as well as contribute to cardiovascular risk.

If you’re suffering from sleep apnea, chances are you have high CRP levels. In another study, researchers treated participants suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). The data revealed that CPAP treatment for OSA significantly reduces CRP concentrations.

Lower inflammation can help decrease your risk of getting heart disease, diabetes, stroke, arthritis, and premature aging. Ward off inflammation with good sleep.

Spurs Creativity

The relationship between a person’s creativity and sleeping is the subject of much folklore. Many artists credit their creative genius to their dreams. There is also a common term “sleep on it” when making a tough decision.

When you sleep, your brain can create new connections among dimly related ideas. This results in the restructuring of new information that will lead to creating insights once you wake up. When you sleep, your brain becomes active. Also, as you enter REM sleep, your mind is more flexible and open to newer ways of thinking.

Sleep assists the brain in connecting unrelated memories and ideas which increases the odds that a creative idea will surface.

Improves Grades

Children between 10 and 16 years old who have sleep disorders often have issues with learning and attention. A study in the journal Sleep states that these issues can lead to a significant functional impairment at school. University students who did not get enough sleep also had worse grades compared to those who slept well.

Poor or inadequate sleep is a risk factor for poor academic performance. The pre-frontal cortex is the engine behind your working memory, planning, math, and language skills. Without sufficient sleep, this brain area suffers from performance issues. As a result, the person’s academic performance suffers as well.

Sleep plays a significant role in helping children and teenagers in establishing and consolidating their memories.

Regulates Weight

If you are short on sleep, it can affect your weight. When you lack sleep, you are tempted to skip your diet, get fast food takeout for dinner, and sleep late.

Skipping sleeping hours affects the activity in your brain’s frontal lobe – the area that is associated with decision-making and impulse control. When tired, the reward centers of your brain look for something to make you feel good. Your brain attempts to find comfort with food cravings. These urges can lead to unhealthy eating habits and eventually, uncontrolled weight gain.

Kill the food cravings by sleeping. When you have enough sleep, you give the brain one less reason to find unhealthy ways to feel good.

Enhances Longevity

Insufficient sleep has links to a shorter lifespan. Sleep deprivation can spur a number of health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and obesity. If left untreated, these issues can significantly reduce a person’s lifespan.

Sleep gives the brain and the body a chance to recharge and to properly regulate their functions. Hence, it is vital to sleep seven to nine hours every night so you can feel better and enjoy a longer life.

Enriches Your Sex Life

Sleep can help you spice up your sex life. Sleep deprivation impacts your libido. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) limits your body’s capability to produce the sex hormone, testosterone. A study conducted by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology revealed male OSA sufferers produce testosterone levels that are lower, which diminishes libido.

On the other hand, testosterone levels naturally increase while you sleep. Your body needs oxygen to produce testosterone and sustain a healthy libido. Another study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine shows that longer sleep is correlated to higher sexual desire the next day. Furthermore, researchers note that getting enough sleep is essential to promote sexual urges and a healthy genital response along with the possibility of engaging in sexual activity with a partner.