The Importance of Sleep

We all know that sleep is quite important for day-to-day living BUT most of us can admit, we aren't getting enough sleep each night. There's pressure from corporate America to reduce our shut-eye time so we can get even more work done. But that's the type of mindset that can really get us into trouble when it comes to our health and well-being.

Sleep allows our body to repair and restore itself. Our muscles can relax and while we're sleeping, our immune system is also getting stronger. (that's why getting more sleep when feeling under the weather is so crucial) Sleep also helps us retain our memory and our learning. As much as college students like me can all admit to cramming for that big exam at some point, not much memorization and retaining is going on there. It can also improve problem-solving. Not sleeping can make us dumb. It's just true. Sorry. Research also shows that sleep can cleanse our bodies from toxins. If you think about all the toxins our bodies have to fight off every single day, it's incredible and your body needs sleep in order to keep fighting yucky things. Sleep can also improve our creativity which is cool because as Americans, we love the idea of being innovative and original. No sleep=boring people.   =(

Okay, so a word (or quite a few words) about napping…
Napping can be a wonderful and beautiful thing. (believe me, I'm a college student) However, if you nap for more than an hour, you may experience something called "sleep inertia". This is when you wake up feeling groggy and even more exhausted than before the nap. Yeah, that's not exactly ideal. Power naps can be really helpful as long as the nap is somewhere between 20-30 minutes. One way to reduce "sleep inertia" while napping is by laying down on the floor and putting your legs straight up against a wall. Okay, this sounds really weird, but because a part of your body is still working/awake, the chances of waking up groggy decreases.

So let's all try to get either more sleep and/or better quality sleep. We all need it regardless of how much we persuade ourselves and others that work comes first. Yes, work is good and needed but we also need to take really good care of our bodies because we only get one body. Be nice to yourself, and hopefully you'll experience some positive results.