Can’t Sleep? Here’s How To Sleep Better & The Benefits Of Sleeping

If you’re not getting the quality shut-eye you need, make no mistake about it, it’s impacting every single element of your health and well-being. Learning how to sleep better is by far, the most critical step you must take to see improved health and well-being.

To get a primer on how sleep will benefit you, check out this video where we cover the in’s and out’s of the importance of sleep along with some tips and tricks for helping you get a better night’s sleep.

Now that you have a basic understanding of what you can do to sleep better, let’s talk about sleep and your health. Do you really know the connection between sleep and your well-being?

As you might be surprised to know, the benefits of sleeping go far beyond simply feeling energized throughout the day.

Here are the primary benefits of sleeping enough at night – and how not sleeping enough can harm you.

Sleep And Excessive Body Fat

If you’re currently on a fat-loss diet plan, chances are you’re doing all that you can to see optimal results. You’re tracking your calories, you’re getting to the gym each and every day, and you’re making sure that you are taking the supplements recommended for you.

But are you sleeping enough?

While it might come as a big surprise to many people, sleep, or lack of it, could play a significant role in the weight loss results you see. How is this so?

The reason sleep impacts fat loss is that sleep influences two hormones in the body called leptin and ghrelin. Leptin is a hormone that monitors total body fat stores along with calorie expenditure. When fat loss or total calorie intake gets lower, Leptin levels will start to decline, and this can cause the metabolic rate to slow down. This then contributes to the weight loss plateau that many people experience while going about their plans.

The other thing that can cause leptin to shift is lack of sleep. If you aren’t sleeping as much as you should at night, this could contribute to a slower-than-normal metabolic rate, making fat loss feel that much harder.

Along with leptin, another hormone that will play a role here is Ghrelin. This is the hormone that helps to control appetite levels. When ghrelin levels go up, as they often do when you haven’t eaten in a while, so does your appetite with it. You become ravenous and want to eat everything in sight.

Then when you do eat, your levels decrease again, and you become satiated. Basically, ghrelin is the satiety hormone.

When you aren’t sleeping enough, however, you’ll come to find that your ghrelin levels are higher than normal at all times, no matter what you eat. So, you might find yourself snacking when you otherwise wouldn’t be.

Have you ever noticed that after a night of not much sleep, you want to nibble all day? That’s ghrelin at work. The unfortunate part of this is that when you have high ghrelin and low leptin, you’re basically priming your body for fat gain.

Sleep And Poor Blood Sugar Response

In addition to potentially inducing weight gain, lack of sleep can cause poor blood sugar response. Not only does weight gain contribute to a higher risk factor for this, but lack of sleep can also lead to insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is one of the hallmark traits of diabetes, so it doesn’t take much to make you see the connection here.

Sleep And Heart Health Issues

Another way that sleep can influence your health is heart health issues. Again, being overweight can lead to a higher risk of poor heart health, so once again, you get that sleep and excess body fat connection playing a role here.

But in addition to that, the lack of sleep can also be linked to poor heart health. Studies suggest that those who aren’t sleeping enough are at a higher risk, with studies citing that adults who slept fewer than six hours per night were about twice as likely to have heart complications compared to those who slept six to eight hours each night.

If you have a family history of heart conditions, it is important that you focus on getting the quality shut-eye that you need.

Decreased Immune System

One thing that you will likely notice if you’re falling short of sleep time and time again is a weaker immune system. Sleep influences how strong your body is and how well you can fight back against health issues, so it’s something that you must be taken seriously.

If you commonly fall ill with colds and flu, this could be due to the suppression of your immune system.

Focus on sleeping more each night, and you should be able to remedy the problem.

Lower Libido

Maintaining a healthy sex life is important for enjoying life to the fullest, and lack of sleep can be extremely detrimental to your libido. Don’t be surprised if you don’t feel much in the mood for anything if you’re sleep-deprived, which can greatly strain any relationship you happen to be in.

As having an active sex life is also a great way to promote a healthy stress response (which is also associated with many health issues), you don’t want to miss out on these important benefits.

Poor Brain Power

Staying mentally sharp as you age is a goal for many; if you are involved in a mentally demanding career, it might be necessary.

But, lack of sleep can have serious consequences here as well. Those who aren’t sleeping enough at night are more likely to become drowsy on the job, suffer from poor memory, and have a harder time consolidating the information they learn.

And their reaction times may suffer as well. You won’t be as quick to think on your feet, so next time you’re in a meeting, and someone calls upon you, it may just mean the difference between you answering with the answer you want to give or sitting there stammering while you try and think of what to say.

If you also happen to notice that you forget basic things lately (you just can’t remember where you put your keys for the life of you), this could also have to do with not getting enough sleep.
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Poor Mental Health

It probably doesn’t take much explaining to understand the sleep-poor mental health link. One night of poor sleep is enough to put anyone in a bad mood, but if you suffer from lack of sleep on an everyday basis, don’t be surprised if you just can’t get motivated for anything in life.

Mental health challenges can strike everyone, but if you aren’t getting enough sleep, all the frustrating occurrences that may happen on a day-to-day basis can feel that much more challenging to face, setting you up to experience poor mental health effects.

Sleep And Blood Pressure

Lack of sleep can also have a big influence on your blood pressure as well. If you aren’t sleeping enough at night, you aren’t giving your body the time it needs to repair your blood vessels, and this can then play a larger role in chronic health problems such as heart disease and stroke.

If your blood vessels are not at their healthiest state, you cannot transport blood as readily throughout the body, which can, in turn, lead to increased blood pressure levels.

If you regularly monitor your blood pressure, take careful note of the association between your readings and the amount of sleep you get. You’ll likely find that your numbers are higher when you’re sleep deprived than after a good night’s rest.

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Sleep And Mood

Don’t discount the impact of sleep and your mood – and, therefore, your social relationships. You’re prone to being more moody, short-tempered, and all around more depressing to others when you’re not sleeping enough.

While this may not have a direct impact on you, it certainly will impact those around you. If you start to lose relationships because of your moodiness, this will then play a key role in your overall life happiness and satisfaction.

Accident Prone

One factor that most people completely overlook when thinking about how sleep impacts them is the fact it can make you that much more accident-prone. You are more likely to trip or suffer a ‘freak’ sort of accident that comes on simply due to carelessness or not paying attention while in a sleep-deprived state.

Often it’s these accidents that can really cause serious injury and prove to be incredibly frustrating as well.

On top of this, you are that much more likely to get into a car accident when in a sleep-deprived state as well. In fact, studies have cited that the proportion of car crashes attributable to drive sleepiness may vary from about 3-30%, indicating just how serious of an issue this really is.

Sleep in a very sleep-deprived state may be just about as dangerous as driving while under the influence of alcohol.

So now that you know the benefits of sleeping and how it can impact your health, let’s take a closer look at the steps that you can take to improve your sleep quality.

Improving Your Sleep Quality

Want to learn how to get more sleep? If you are interested in figuring out how to sleep better, the great news is that there are a number of things that you can do that will help you go from so-so sleep to great sleep that leaves you waking up revitalized.

Let’s look at a couple of the sleep optimization tips and tricks that you need to know.

Sleep Masks

The number one thing that you should be considering if getting a better night’s sleep is a top priority for you is getting yourself a sleep mask.

A sleep mask is perfect for helping to block out incoming light that may peek through your windows, stopping the production of melatonin in the body.

Melatonin is the natural hormone that helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle, and it will be shut off when the daylight creeps in.

This might be why if you wake up partway through the night to go to the bathroom and see some morning sunlight coming in through your window, you are unable to fall back asleep. Once your brain has been exposed to the sunlight, melatonin production slows, and it can really make it a struggle to fall back asleep.

A sleep mask will help prevent this.

White Noise Machine

Another thing you may want to consider is a white noise machine. Now, you don’t necessarily have to purchase a machine to get these benefits. A simple fan will do the trick nicely.

The goal here is to block out any incoming irregular sounds, which can make it very challenging to fall asleep. These sounds will often disturb you, causing you to wake up and making it harder to get back to sleep.

Temperature Control

While not something you will purchase per se, turning down the temperature in your room is another important way to help promote restful sleep.

It’s a good idea to pre-program your thermostat in your house so that it starts going down a few hours before you plan to go to sleep this primes your body – and your room – for you to fall asleep.

Note that you do want to avoid using an air conditioner whenever possible, as these can have other negative health consequences.

Melatonin Supplements

Another thing that you may have come across that’s sometimes marketed to help people sleep is melatonin supplements. These can help make you feel more drowsy and promote sleepiness most of the time.

One thing you need to realize with these is that you’ll awaken after just a few hours and struggle to fall back asleep very often. While each person will be unique in how they respond, this is quite common, so it must be taken into account.

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If you are only planning on sleeping 4-5 hours and need something to help you fall asleep fast, melatonin may do the trick. But if you want to sleep longer, it may not be the best solution for you.

In addition, it’s not a good supplement to use on a chronic basis as you may depend on it for falling asleep.

Some people may also suffer from a melatonin hangover after using it, which is a general feeling of being groggy and/or tired the next day. Again, see how you react.

For some people, it works wonderfully, while for others, it doesn’t work out so well. If you are struggling with feeling groggy, you might also consider a smaller dose as, in some cases, that can help you side-step these feelings.

Most people will do best to take a dosage between 1 and 3 mg daily. Start with the lower dosage and build up from there.

Chamomile Tea

Chamomile tea is another natural sleep aid that may help you fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply. Unlike melatonin, this one is perfectly safe to use, and while the effects may not be quite as strong, it certainly can be very beneficial.

If you are going to use chamomile tea, however, just try and drink it soon enough before bed that you aren’t waking up in the middle of the night to use the washroom.

Keep your dose limited to about a cup or so to prevent that.

So there you have some of the natural ways that you can help promote better quality sleep. Sleep optimization is so important because it will play a valuable role in your health and well-being. Too many people are in the habit of overlooking this, only to, in the end, suffer from serious health conditions because of it.

Once you get your sleep lined up properly, you’ll wonder how you ever went without it.

Do you have any sleep optimization tricks or tips you’d like to share? What have you done that’s made a big difference in helping to get more sleep at night? Share your comments below – we’d love to hear them.

Want to learn more about optimizing your health and well-being? Check out my free 84-day course, where I will cover everything you need to know about improving your health, preventing disease, and achieving maximum living.

References:

Ayas, Najib T., et al. “A prospective study of sleep duration and coronary heart disease in women.” Archives of internal medicine 163.2 (2003): 205-209.

Connor, Jennie, et al. “Driver sleepiness and risk of serious injury to car occupants: population based case-control study.” Bmj 324.7346 (2002): 1125.