Sleep Well, Feel Well

Sleep Well, Feel Well

Sleeping is something that we do everyday, but have you ever thought about how sleep affects your overall health and wellness?

To learn more about the importance of sleep, I turned to developmental molecular biologist and author John Medina. In his book, Brain Rules, Medina talks about the reasons we sleep, the positive effects of sleep, and what we lose when we don’t get enough sleep.

Here are a few highlights from his book:

• Although the right amount of sleep varies from person to person, the estimated average is between 7-9 hours for adults.
• The ability to utilize the food we consume may be reduced by up to 33% with lack of sleep.
• The ability to make insulin decreases with sleep deprivation.
• The production of stress hormones increases with loss of sleep.
• Attention, executive function, working memory, mood, logical reasoning, general math knowledge and even motor function can all be negatively affected by lack of sleep.

Conversely adequate sleep has been linked with better visual texture discrimination, better motor adaptations, and improved learning.

Getting More from Life

Our mission is to help you get more from life, to increase your BRIO, so we looked at the stress response to sleep deprivation and the effect of sleep loss on motor function.

For optimal health and fitness, to decrease pain and to promote better performance, the challenge this week is for you to evaluate your own sleep habits.  Identify where you fall short and develop ways to get the amount of sleep you deserve and need.

If you are a sleep expert, tell us how much sleep you get and ways to ensure adequate sleep.

For more information on sleeping well, check out this other resource: 12 simple tips to improve your sleep