5 Compelling Reasons to Get More Z's

From a boost in short-term alertness and clarity, to the procurement of long-term mental and physical health, getting adequate sleep will dramatically improve your quality of life. Here are five compelling reasons to make sleep a priority.

1) More Z’s at Night Make For Easier, More Productive And Fun Days
In addition to not feeling tired all day, it’s easier to enjoy your day when you’re able to stay focused on what you’re doing. A good night’s sleep improves several aspects of cognitive function. A National Institute of Health study1 shows that a good night’s sleep leads to better focus and superior overall performance. On the flip-side, a lack of sleep is associated with poor cognitive function.

2) Maintain A Healthy Weight When You’re Getting Adequate Sleep
Sleep loss throws a multitude of your hormones into upheaval. While your levels of leptin, a hormone that moderates your appetite, go down, your levels of ghrelin, a hormone that makes you hungrier, go up. The under-slept individual feels more starved for calories even though he or she really isn’t. The result is unhealthy weight gain.

3) More Sleep Means a Stronger Immune System
When you aren’t sleeping long enough, your body is more likely interpret insufficient sleep as an environmental stressor and can go into emergency mode. Your cortisone levels increase and your body, in its physiological panic-state, begins to reserve available glucose, diminishing the strength of the immune system to fight off infection. A University of Chicago study found that men who were under-slept produced far fewer antibodies following a flu shot3. Keep your body prepared to fight off illness with a stable, steady sleep schedule.

4) Good Sleep Enhances Memory and Learning
The way we learn and memorize is greatly affected by the quality of our sleep. There’s a process known as “consolidation,” which occurs during slow wave sleep and involves the practicing and rehashing of lessons learned during the day. This process also involves the critical “unlearning” of superfluous activity. To illustrate this unlearning, an article in Psychology Today4 uses the example of a child learning how to ride a bike. What’s important to remember or learn, for the child, is how to stay in control while riding. During REM sleep, non-useful experiential learning, such as how to fall off the bike, is effectively unlearned while useful learning, such how to ride with stability is reinforced.

5) Sleep Optimizes Specialized Skills, Athletic, Intellectual etc.
A study in 20115 showed that basketball players who got healthy amounts of sleep had better reaction times, accuracy and speed. Another study followed football players and concluded that the players who got better sleep had more energy and were faster6. It was also included in the journal, Sleep, that sleep disturbances made it difficult for children to learn and that college students, on average, got better grades when they were weren’t sleep deprived7.

Take Action

If you’re looking for a better night’s sleep, along with all the ensuing benefits, then take the time today to set up an appointment with Dr. Gary Core, DDS. Dr. Core’s office is located in North Phoenix, close to the border of Peoria and Glendale. Call (602) 866-1429.


1http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15824327
2http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15509817
3http://www.besthealthmag.ca/best-you/sleep/10-reasons-why-you-need-more-sleep/6/
4https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-angels/200905/11-reasons-why-good-nights-sleep-is-so-important
5http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21731144
6http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20459221_6,00.html
7http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20459221_7,00.html