Month: September 2011

The Top Ten Benefits That Sleeping can Provide

The immediate benefits of a great night’s sleep are obvious. You feel energized, refreshed, and are ready to tackle your day with the utmost enthusiasm. But sleep is much more than that. The benefits for your health that sleeping can provide seem endless. Here are the top ten benefits that sleep can provide.

10 Sleep Reduces Stress

Whether you are getting ready for a full night’s sleep, or just taking a nap, sleep can help to control your mental and physical stress levels. Sleeping can help to lower high blood pressure levels and elevated levels of stress levels. Today’s world is a fast paced lifestyle, so sleeping can definitely slow your stress levels.

9 Sleep Helps Athletic performance

Athletic performance is more important that some may think. Not everyone is going to be a super star athlete like Kobe Bryant, but receiving athletic grants or scholarships can go a long way for ones future. Athletic performance is linked to stronger social skills, improved classwork, and of course, fun. Resting up for the big game is very important if you want your performance to be top notch.

8 Sleep Improves Memory

When you are sleep deprived you often find difficulty concentrating, remembering, or even constructing clear thoughts. Sleeping helps your brain with rest/recovery and in turn your brain is busy organizing and sorting out thought or memories.

7 Sleep Helps Job Performance

This one almost seems like a no brainer, but still many of us wake up agitated, and our performance on the job suffers as a result. Without the necessary rest we are unable to perform complex problem solving skills, and find ourselves constantly playing catch up. Good sleep makes for good work.

6 Sleeping Helps Repair Your Body

Your body is constantly at war with the outside world. When we are breaking down muscles and draining our bodies physically, sleep can help to repair proteins that have been damaged. While this can be done out of sleep, the majority of protein repair happens in REM sleep. Sleep also helps to repair damaged skin cells that can lead to acne, or even scarring. A healthy body requires healthy sleep.

5 Sleeping Can Help You to Live Longer

Too little sleep is often correlated with a shorter life span. It is not quite spelled out whether sleep is a cause or an effect, but a healthy sleep schedule is related to longer years for a person. In 2010 a study in women between 60 and 70 showed more deaths occurred for those who got less than 5-6 hours of sleep each night; however too much sleep can also be harmful. A healthy balance of rest is required.

4 Sleep Helps Creativity

In addition to improving memory sleeping also is linked to creativity. Creativity is vital to many individuals in life. Without new inspiring ideas, the world will take much longer to develop. A good night’s sleep can help you to find that creative drive that you yearn for. Often times, writers block is associated with a lack of sleep.

3 Sleep Helps Your Heart

Everyone wants a strong healthy heart. Sleep plays a major role in helping maintain a healthy heart. Your cardiovascular system is always under stress and high blood pressure can be the main culprit. Sleep helps to keep cholesterol levels in check, which plays a major role in heart disease.

2 Sleeping Helps to Control Weight

If you are on a new diet plan, you may want to plan for an earlier bedtime as well. Diet and exercise are a key part to losing weight. Without proper rest and recovery diet and exercise may be useless. Your body needs to repair muscle proteins, and sleep can ensure that your diet is be maximized to its full potential. Otherwise, nutrients would be wasted, and you would be left feeling groggy.

1 Sleep Helps to Avoid AccidentsOn average one and six accidents are related to sleep deprivation. Sleepiness affects our decision making, and reaction time. On top of that, a winding smooth road is unfortunately, too relaxing, and falling asleep at the wheel is a very scary possibility. A combination of a lack of sleep and getting behind the wheel can be even more dangerous than alcohol related incidents.

Bonus! Sleep Helps with Depression

More and more in our fast paced world depression is affecting American’s lives. Depression can be caused by any number of things, and it can be a very serious condition. Sleep helps to control our irritability, and our anxiety, which are too of the leading contributors to depression. Sleep helps you to achieve more emotional stability, which can help you in almost every aspect of life.

Sleeping has endless health benefits. A good night’s rest can go a long way in today’s busy lifestyle. The average adult requires around 7-9 hours of sleep, so try to work that into your hectic lifestyle each night. Remember napping can always help too! A regular sleep schedule helps promote better sleeping habits and falling asleep faster.

 

This is a guest post authored by  Nicole Brinski

--
Important:
The Sleep Blog does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Instead, this website provides general information for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider if you have questions or concerns regarding any medical condition or treatment.

Is Your Mattress Contributing to Health Problems?

Obesity has become one of the biggest threats to the health of our population today. While few realize it, obesity can lead to a wide range of health problems, including sleep disorders. In turn, sleep disorders impact the quality and amount of sleep you receive. This impacts your productivity throughout the day and can even result in life-threatening health problems.

Could some of these problems – obesity itself and obesity-driven sleep disorders – be attributed to the quality of your mattress? It could be worth a closer look. Since sleep deprivation can result in over-eating throughout the day to increase energy levels and over-eating results in obesity, taking a look at the quality of your mattress, even if it feels “just fine” or “better than new,” may be a worthwhile and beneficial exercise.

Do you stir through the night? As a test, make a conscious effort to note the position you wake up in and ask yourself if that was the same position that you tried to fall asleep in. A tough question to answer, but you might be surprised.

According to research conducted by qMattresses.com, a website primarily dedicated to mattress reviews and sleep health, an older mattress will lack the support characteristics of a younger model. With a lack of support, specific pressure points in your body will become strained, causing enough discomfort that your brain triggers you to move. While this stirring relieves the strain on those pressure points, it actually disrupts the quality of sleep. Because the stirring is done subconsciously, the only indication of a restless night and poor sleep may be in the morning, when people wake up still feeling exhausted.

As a consequence of a poor night’s sleep, a lot of people will eat high-energy (most often high-sugar or high-carb) foods throughout the day to boost energy. Most of us know what these foods do to our physique; carbs are converted into sugars which, if not used to fuel the body, turn into fat. Sugars and fats also cause our bodies to crave more sugars, further perpetuating the cycle. Give it a few months or a year and, eventually, people are left with a weight problem. As mentioned earlier, weight problems often lead to sleep problems.

One by-product of obesity, snoring, is such a common sleep disorder today that most of us do not even consider it a disorder at all. It affects up to 50% of adults, most of which are male. Snoring can also be linked back to poor mattress support. Since most mattresses can be deemed “comfortable” when back-sleeping, a lot of people ignore the signs that their mattress needs to be replaced.

Do you snore? Try sleeping on your back. Try falling asleep on your side or stomach. A mattress with good support will allow you to fall asleep in a side-sleeping or stomach-sleeping position. A mattress with poor support will leave you uncomfortable. Untreated, snoring can lead to more serious sleep disorders like sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that deprives the brain of oxygen.

When you take a closer look, it is obvious how this self-perpetuating cycle of poor sleep, poor eating, chronic fatigue and poor mattress support can result in serious health problems down the road. In some cases, the cycle can be broken by improving sleep quality through a better mattress. If left unattended, however, a mattress that needs to be replaced will continue to cut into hours of quality sleep until the problem evolves into something more serious.

—

This is a guest post authored by qMattresses.com

--
Important:
The Sleep Blog does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Instead, this website provides general information for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider if you have questions or concerns regarding any medical condition or treatment.