Are you falling asleep at your workouts or nodding off at those important business meetings? More sleep is vital to your health than simply getting up and going about your daily duties, especially if you’re prone to health problems. A minimum of 9 hours of good sleep each night is essential for maintaining personal health and coping with daily challenges. It is also essential for promoting good daytime functioning and health and contributes to improved occupational health.
It is important to note that the importance of sleep for health and well-being encompasses more than improving sleep quality. It also involves avoiding sleep disorders, keeping the body healthy through an exercise program, and avoiding illnesses caused by stress and poor sleep quality.1
An essential component of the importance of sleep is the development of effective sleep hygiene. The importance of a sleep disorder treatment is stressed because a sleep disorder treatment improves sleep quality and sleep hygiene while preventing or controlling sleep disorders. Sleep disorders can be treated effectively through the use of a combination of sleep medications and treatments including, but not limited to, sleep hygiene, relaxation techniques, stress management, alternative therapies, etc.2
Learning the importance of sleep doesn’t have to be difficult. There are many simple ways to sleep better at night and to wake up more refreshed and energetic in the morning. Try reading a book before bed, listening to calming music, or engaging in a relaxing hobby. Exercising right before bedtime will also help you sleep better at night. Just by doing a few of these tips each day, you can dramatically improve your ability to sleep better at night.
What is Sleep Hygiene?
It is simply described as a set of habits or routines that a person, during their sleeping hours, develops to aid sleep. Many studies have been done on what are the best sleep hygiene habits to adopt and what are the health outcomes associated with such habits.3 In most cases, if you are looking at improving your sleep hygiene, you are also looking at improving your health outcomes as well. These two go hand in hand and there are many health benefits to following a sleep hygiene routine that includes getting enough sleep.4
Sleep hygiene is an environmental and personal practice developed in the mid-1970s as a way to assist those with mild to moderate sleep apnea to get a good night’s sleep.5 Over the years this practice has been refined and more studies performed on what are the best sleep hygiene practices to adopt to improve your sleep and help you sleep better. However, since this was developed, there have been few studies that look at the impact of sleep hygiene on health outcomes.
As far as sleep hygiene practices go, making sure you get a good amount of sleep is the simplest thing you can do to promote better sleep.
What Are The Benefits Of Sleep For Health?
Sleep and health go hand in hand, and it is imperative that you maintain good sleep hygiene if you want to reap the benefits of sleep. Poor sleep hygiene can result in your being unable to reap the sleep benefits of sleep. 6
A lack of sleep or abnormal sleeping habits can have a negative impact on your health. You will find that sleep plays a very important role in keeping you healthy. When you sleep at night, you rest your body and mind. Your body is able to recuperate from the physical stress that it has experienced during the day, allowing it to return to work alert and refreshed. This means that sleep hygiene is important if you want to reap the benefits of sleep. There are many sleep centers that offer services that include improving sleep hygiene, providing medications to help with sleep apnea, and providing you with the assistance you need to get to sleep.
Improving your sleep hygiene is one of the most important benefits of good sleep hygiene. You will want to make sure that you have a comfortable bed to sleep on. If you do not sleep on your side, you may find that the bed will be too hard for you to sleep on, making it impossible for you to reap the benefits of sleep hygiene. This means that you should choose a mattress that is the right size for you and one that is comfortable.
Getting into a regular sleep routine is another one of the benefits of good sleep hygiene. This includes waking up at the same time each morning and sticking to the same sleep schedule each night. It is also important that you keep to this sleep schedule each day. This will help you feel more relaxed and less like you are rushing to be done by a certain time.7 Your sleep schedule should include waking up at the same time each morning and then going to sleep for the same amount of time each night. If your sleep schedule is not very regular, this can also lead to difficulties for you to get to sleep in the evening.
These are just some of the benefits of good sleep hygiene. Sleep can affect your mood and energy levels throughout the day so making sure that you are getting plenty of sleep is very important. Getting sleep early in the morning will help to improve your mood and make you more alert. Once you have had enough sleep, it will be easier to function throughout the day and feel better about your overall health.8
Why Does A Proper Amount Of Sleep Benefit A Workout?
It’s hard to find a bodybuilder or strength trainee that doesn’t want to be able to sleep right after a hard day of training, but the question is can the proper amounts of sleep benefit a workout?
A lot of bodybuilders, especially those who work out several days a week, experience the same issue.9 They aren’t used to being able to sleep for nights and wake up refreshed and full of energy to go into another session. If you’re used to waking up at night with a full belly and feeling exhausted, it may seem like a good thing that you can’t sleep for a couple of days after working out. But, if you’ve been doing this, then you probably have developed some sort of sleep disorder. Some common sleep disorders experienced by bodybuilders include restless legs syndrome, sleep apnea, and insomnia.
Bodybuilders sometimes feel as if they need more sleep than other people require just because their bodies are built differently from ours.10 If your body is built to function and produce fast action, then working out can cause you to have enough sleep so your body can perform at its best during your workout. If you sleep enough after working out, you’ll feel more refreshed and can concentrate on your workout better than if you are sleepless.
Image Credits
Very well / November 30, 2020
Slideshare / June 11, 2015
Everyday Health / May 23, 2018
1 “Sleep Disorders Center: Types of Sleep Disorders, Symptoms ….” https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/default.htm Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
2 “Sleep Disorders | MedlinePlus.” https://medlineplus.gov/sleepdisorders.html Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
3 “What Is Sleep Hygiene? | Sleep Foundation.” 14 Aug. 2020, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
4 “Sleep Hygiene Tips – Sleep and Sleep Disorders – CDC.” https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/sleep_hygiene.html Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
5 “Sleep Hygiene Tips, Research & Treatments | American Sleep ….” https://www.sleepassociation.org/about-sleep/sleep-hygiene-tips/ Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
6 “Get Enough Sleep – MyHealthfinder | health.gov.” https://health.gov/myhealthfinder/topics/everyday-healthy-living/mental-health-and-relationships/get-enough-sleep Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
7 “Adopt Good Sleep Habits | Need Sleep – Healthy Sleep (Harvard).” https://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/need-sleep/what-can-you-do/good-sleep-habits Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
8 “Sleep tips: 6 steps to better sleep – Mayo Clinic.” https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/sleep/art-20048379 Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
9 “Exercising for Better Sleep | Johns Hopkins Medicine.” https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/exercising-for-better-sleep Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
10 “The Connection Between Diet, Exercise, and Sleep | Sleep ….” 4 Dec. 2020, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-health/diet-exercise-sleep Accessed 1 Jul. 2021.
