When you’re struggling to sleep, you may start to wonder whether you really want to or whether it’s actually going to benefit your body. There are many ways that sleep benefits the body and it’s more than just recovering from the day before. Some of the benefits you may never have even realised.
It Helps You Recover from Stressful Situations
When you’re stressed, sleep is hard to come by but it can also help you deal with the stress.
While sleeping, your conscious mind “turns off” and leaves the thinking to your subconscious, which deals with the feelings and emotions left over from the day.
You may find that you wake up with an instant idea of how to deal with something or you may just generally feel better because your brain as processed it all.
Your Body Fights Off Illnesses
Your immune system can only work when you are asleep. With that in mind, you need to sleep to be able to fight off infections and illnesses. If you constantly feel run down and full of cold, it could be because your body isn’t getting the rest it needs.
You need six to eight hours sleep for the immune system to really work. If you are ill, you’ll need more rest.
It Gets You Into a Routine
Sleeping can help get you into a good routine. But you need to help this by getting yourself into a good sleeping pattern.
Go to bed at the same time on a night and get up at the same time on a morning. You’ll soon find that everything else falls into place.
It Makes You Feel More Energetic
By sleeping the right amount, you will feel more energetic and ready for anything. However, this can work the opposite if you sleep too much. More than nine hours sleep will make you feel more tired than you were the night before.
If you haven’t had enough sleep on a night, a 15 minute powernap during the day can be enough to make you feel ready to tackle the rest of the day.
You Feel Happier After a Good Night’s Sleep
Your sleep will affect your emotions. This is because it affects your hormones. If you want to feel happier and ready to tackle the world, you will need to get a good night’s sleep.
This can be affected by a number of factors, including things happening around you during the night, conditions like sleep apnoea and emotional factors that make it hard to sleep.
You Process the Events of the Day
Your brain needs to process everything that happened during the day. Sleep is the best option for this. It helps you go over all the events and determine the important things.
This can also help your memory.
It Can Take 25 Minutes to Fall Asleep
If you don’t fall asleep right away, it’s not a bad thing and it’s not going to harm your body in any way.
It can take up to 25 minutes to actually fall asleep once your head hits the pillow. This is because your body needs to get ready for sleep.