The Importance of Sleep

Weight gain: less time in bed means more time to eat and also increases the level of the hunger hormone, ghrelin

Mood: lack of sleep increases activity in the amygdala which is involved in emotions like anger and rage

Athletic performance: lack of sleep is linked to muscle atrophy as the damage done to muscles cells is corrected during our non-REM sleep which is the majority of our sleep time

The famous Stanford study on athletic performance showed that when college athletes were able to obtain 10 hours per night (a lot, but they're college students) their athletic performance in swimming, free throw shooting, 40 yard dash for football players, tennis serving accuracy, sprinting, etc all improved dramatically

Almost 20% of car crash injuries are associated with driving with sleepy, regardless of alcohol consumption

Compared to those averaging 8 hours per night, those sleeping six and five hours are 1.7 and 2.5 times respectively to develop diabetes

Sleep deprivation is linked to high blood pressure, heart disease and some respiratory diseases


Options to improve sleep: get natural light during the day, and sleep in as dark a room as possible; turn off tv's one hour before you want to go to sleep; use the same time to bed and to get up day in and out; sleeping more on the weekends means that your not sleeping enough during the week