Health Benefits of Sleep
Sleep has been proven to:
- Reduce stress
- Improve memory
- Strengthen your body so it can fight infections
- Lower blood pressure
- Boost your mood
- Help maintain weight
- Reduce the risk of stroke and heart conditions
Why Is It So Hard to Get a Good Night’s Sleep?
Specifically, there are a few things that are major contributing factors to the lack of sleep that many people experience today. These include:
- People today are busier than ever with juggling work, family, friends, and more. By the time we finish the day we often want some time to unwind, and those precious hours often come at the cost of sleep.
- FOMO, fear of missing out, may cause us to stay up late and spend hours scrolling through our social media feeds instead of getting some much-needed shuteye.
- Blue light, the light from all our screens, suppresses the production of melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone. This can make us feel more awake when we really should be sleepy, or just make it harder to fall asleep.
- Some people have physical ailments that make it hard to sleep.
Taking Control of Our Sleeping Habits
We may not have control over certain physical conditions that make it hard to sleep, but we CAN control how much screen time we have before we go to sleep and how late we stay up. While it may be hard to close your phone in the beginning, it will become easier and easier once you start this positive habit.