5 Key Benefits of Sleep to Your Health

After a productive day in the office, at the gym, with the family or out in the field, jumping into bed to rest up is a rewarding way to wind down and recharge the batteries. This way, you’re ready to get up and face the next day with enthusiasm.

A good sleep makes you feel great! 

But it offers you so much more than just improving your mood and helping you to feel energised to awaken at your best. Adequate sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle that helps maintain your energy so you can meet each day head on.

Let’s discuss the 5 key benefits of quality sleep.

1. Sleep improves your memory, concentration and productivity

Sleep affects many aspects of your brain’s functions, including performance, cognition, concentration, memory and productivity.^1,2 

While you sleep, your brain remains quite active, undertaking a process called consolidation. The Sleep Foundation and research studies have attributed this to improving your learning ability by strengthening the neural connections that form memories¹.

One study actually showed that when medical interns worked extended shifts of over 24 hours and had poor sleep they made almost 36% more serious errors than those who had more sleep.³

Getting enough quality sleep is therefore beneficial to improving your mental health and mental capability every day.⁴

2. Sleep enhances athletic performance

Quality sleep doesn’t just improve brain function. It has also been shown to improve athletic and physical performance too.⁵ 

After all, when you’re well-rested, you feel more energetic and in tune with your physical body.

In a study with a group of college basketball players, their goal-scoring accuracy, reaction time and speed showed dramatic improvement when they had healthy sleep time⁶

So whether you’re gearing up for a big game, or you simply want to be fighting fit, quality sleep may be the key.

3. Sleep reduces the risk of illnesses

Getting sufficient sleep every night is important if you want to keep your energy up and get the most out of each day. However, it has also been shown to reduce the risk of illnesses and boost your immune system.⁷ 

If your physical health is a priority, then it’s important to be scheduling in enough quality shut-eye.  

4. Sleep improves your immune system

Your immune system maintains your health by protecting your body from infection, viral organisms, and foreign invaders. But when it gets weak, you can become sick and this leads to downtime as you try to recover from a cold or flu, for example. No one has time for that, which is why it’s important to keep it functioning well.

Getting enough sleep every night has been linked to keeping your immune system strong by allowing your body to recuperate and restore itself every night while lack of sleep weakens your immune function.⁸

5. Sleep helps regulate body weight

Sleep duration plays an important role when it comes to appetite, obesity, and body mass index too.⁹

Studies have shown that people who get enough sleep tend to consume fewer calories and are even more motivated to exercise, both of which can reduce the risk of excess weight gain and obesity.¹⁰ Your body weight can be directly affected by how much sleep you get.

On the other hand, chronic sleep deprivation increases the risk of developing serious medical conditions such as heart disease, increase in blood sugar levels and high blood pressure, to name a few.

How a free sleep assessment can help you

As you can see, getting enough quality sleep offers you a lot of positive benefits towards living a happy, fit and healthy life every day.

If you are getting too little sleep or experiencing problems sleeping, you may wish to consider undertaking our free online sleep assessment to better understand how to improve your restful state and overall health. 

The assessment only takes 60 seconds and asks you a series of simple questions designed to provide you with more information. It also conveniently sends the results to you via an email.

Awaken your best by taking our free sleep assessment now.