The Benefits of Sleep

• Good sleep lead to longevity
• Enhance your memory
• Improve your mood
• Stay sharp
• Keep your heart healthy
• Boost your weight loss

Getting a solid eight hours of sleep each night is like putting money in the bank, providing you with a stash of valuable spending power for the days to come. While you slumber, your brain is as busy as a little power plant, keeping electrical currents flowing and essentially recharging your batteries. Cheat yourself of rest, and it will cost you plenty. Studies show that sleep deprivation negatively alters brain activity, slowing reaction time in certain cellular and chemical activities. For example, during the brain's night shift, hormones help repair tissues, preparing them for a new day of movement; sleep deprivation can leave you prone to injury.  A slumber debt also interrupts the brain's electrical patterns, producing a spacey, groggy feeling when you wake up.

Think of your brain as a symphony in which every musician has a role, if certain cells aren't firing on time, it throws everything off, like somebody playing out of tune. When you lack sleep, your entire body performs at compromised levels, meaning you can't be your best at work, in relationships, creatively, mentally or physically.

Sleep loss interferes with the secretion of cortisol, a hormone that regulates appetite. If cortisol levels are out of whack, you may still feel hungry even if you've had enough to eat. Researchers also found that carbohydrates metabolize slower when you're sleep-deprived, causing sugars to linger in the blood and jack up insulin production, which increases the storage of body fat and can lead to the development of type 2 diabetes.  Lots of behind-the-scenes healing goes on while you snooze, including the repair of cells damaged by normal wear and tear and the bolstering of the immune system. Sleep impacts the body's defense mechanisms, it is believed that lack of sleep increases susceptibility to viral and bacterial pathogens.