mental health
Improving sleep routine can help your overall health
By Sudie Crouch | Health & wellness columnist
Sleep. Something we all do every night but probably take for granted its importance until we find ourselves not getting enough of it. When we’re younger, we probably relished the thought of burning the midnight oil and staying up as long as we could, until we realized that sleep — or the lack thereof — can have a profound effect on our health and well-being. As children, we were often put to bed early, sometimes around 8 p.m., to make sure we had adequate sleep. This was important for our developing brains and growth! But, sleep is still just as important as we age. The average recommended amount of sleep for adults is between seven and nine hours. Sleep quality can make a big difference in how those hours of sleep feel, too. When we wake up still feeling tired and groggy, we know that we’re not getting restorative sleep.
What happens when we don’t get enough sleep? We often think not getting enough sleep can just make us tired and lethargic, but lack of proper sleep can impact our overall health and wellness in many ways. Studies have found that not 20 | 400 LIFE | March 2022
getting adequate sleep can contribute to memory issues (think of the brain fog you experience when you’re tired!); decreased immunity; weight gain/difficulty losing weight; and an increase in heart disease and diabetes. Hard to believe that sleep can impact so many areas of our lives, but it’s true. Sleep allows our body to kind of ‘re-set’ each night on a cellular level, and can even help improve our brain function. Think of how much better your phone or laptop performs after restarting. On a much bigger level, sleep does that for our bodies.
Things that disrupt sleep Many things can disrupt our sleep, but some of the primary ones include: Screen time — studies have found that looking at our phones for long periods of time can actually disrupt our bodies ability to produce melatonin, a hormone our bodies naturally produces to help us sleep. Stress — this is something that can be one of the biggest disruptors on our health, and it can greatly affect our sleep routines. When we are stressed, we experience higher levels of cortisol and
