Physical and Mental Benefits of Sleep
We do it, or should be doing it, each night, but why? Why is it important? Why do we need it? Sleep. It plays such a vital role in our health and well-being and often times we overlook its importance and skip or shorten the time we should be resting.
The way we feel, mental and physical, is directly associated with getting enough sleep each night. Getting enough sleep each night can help protect your physical and mental health, quality of life and safety.
When you don’t receive enough sleep, it is called “Sleep Deficiency” and its effects can be felt at any point. Whether it be something instantaneous, such as a car crash, or felt over time, such as a chronic health problem, trouble thinking, interacting with others, learning ability or reaction time.
Healthy Brain Function and Emotional Well-Being
One of the most important benefits of sleep is healthy brain function and your emotional well-being. While you are sleeping, your brain is recharging, preparing for the next time you are awake and is working on forming new paths to help you learn and remember information.
There have been numerous studies that show a proper night’s sleep improves learning capacity, problem solving skills, helps you pay attention, make decisions and even be more creative. Have you ever woken up from a nap or a night’s sleep with a great idea?
Physical Health
Sleep also plays a large role in your overall physical health. It is involved in the healing and repair of your heart, blood vessels and muscles. Sleep deficiency puts you at an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke.
Obesity is another risk of sleep deficiency. Sleep regulates and maintains a healthy balance of hormones that give the sensations of hunger or being full. When you don’t sleep you feel more hungry and this might cause you to overeat increasing your weight gain and eventually cause obesity.
Sleep also regulates how your body reacts to insulin, the hormone that controls your blood glucose level. When you don’t sleep it can cause a higher blood sugar level which can put you at risk for diabetes.
A healthy immune system is aided by the gain of proper, restful sleep. Sleep deficiency can change the way your immune system reacts and in some cases you may find yourself having trouble fighting common infections.
Daytime Performance and Safety
Quality sleep each night aids your daily function throughout the day. Not sleeping can cause you to become less productive at school, work and home. You take longer to finish tasks, make more mistakes, have trouble processing, and have slower reaction times.
Studies have shown that losing 1 to 2 hours of sleep each night, your ability to function suffers as if you haven’t slept for at all for a day and can lead to microsleep. Microsleep are brief moments of sleep that occur when you are normally awake and you may not even be aware of it.
Drowsy driving has been documented as being as bad if not worse than drunk driving. It has been estimated that nearly 100,000 car accidents each year that result in nearly 1,500 deaths are caused by drowsy driving.
Sleep deficiencies have been linked to depression, suicide and risk-taking behavior. Furthermore, children who are sleep deficient have shown problems getting along with others, anger outbursts, impulsive behavior, mood swings, depression, lack of motivation and have trouble paying attention in school or to their parents.
These are all very serious problems that you can reduce your risk of simply by sleeping the proper amount each night. The dangers are real and imminent and should be take seriously.
At Mattresses For Less we take sleep seriously and it is our number one priority to supply our customers with the most comfortable sleep available to them. We have a trained and knowledgeable staff at each of our 5 Houston, Texas locations dedicated to pairing you with a mattress that will help you sleep more comfortably and soundly each and every night.
Visit today and lie down on any of our in-store inventory so you can feel which mattress is right for you. We are Houston’s Adjustable Bed headquarters and offer a massive inventory of top named mattress brands including Serta, Simmons, Restonic, Spring Air, Comforpedic, and iComfort.