“Getting enough sleep doesn’t mean that you are giving up your goals or your desire to achieve and succeed—on the contrary, it makes you more effective…it’s a performance enhancer.” Arianna Huffington
I’ve been working on my healthy transformation since mid-April. I’m making good progress despite occasional missteps and lesson repetition. Most of my focus so far has been on improving my diet and fitness. Recently, I’ve become aware that SLEEP is another area that is critical for improving health and wellbeing.
The National Institute of Health released a comprehensive guide in 2011 to educate us on the impact of good quality sleep. This 72 page resource has some great tips and tricks identifying sleep challenges and finding resources to improve sleep quality.
The NIH guide informs that sleep impacts the following areas:
Brain – Learning, Memory, and Mood are positively impacted by good quality sleep. Lack of sleep can cause confusion and irritability. The brain often performs its filing processes at night so missing the opportunity to file may cause your brain to look like a messy office with papers all over the place.
Heart – Provides rest to your heart and vascular system; otherwise the lack of sleep produces stress in these systems which leads to high blood pressure and can trigger high cortisol.
Hormones – Vital hormones are released during sleep. In particular growth and energy related hormones are working to refuel your body. In particular lack of sleep can impact hormones that control weight gain.
Here are a few links to helpful resources to improve your sleep quality:
- NIH Sleep Guide: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/public/sleep/healthy_sleep.pdf
- Arianna Huffington’s Ted Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/arianna_huffington_how_to_succeed_get_more_sleep
- Arianna’s Sleep Revolution Book : http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Revolution-Transforming-Your-Night/dp/1101904003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465178628&sr=8-1&keywords=ariana+huffington+sleep
- Rich Roll’s Podcast with Arianna: http://www.richroll.com/podcast/arianna-huffington/
The NIH sleep guide includes a sleep diary which you can use to observe your current sleep quality. While you are planning your sleep analysis take a listen to Arianna’s Ted Talk on sleep…
Until next week,