Why sleep is important for your health

In my last post I discussed how what you eat can effect the quality of your sleep, and how the quality of your sleep can influence what you eat! Quite a circular topic, I know!

In this post I want motivate you to take good care of your sleep. We all know how we feel after a bad nights sleep. Irritable, fatigued, mentally slower… sound familiar? But your sleep, and the quality of the sleep you get over a prolonged period of days, weeks, months and years can have a profound impact on your health.

Here are some ways your sleep feeds in to your health:

1. Sleep helps regulate hormones related to hunger (ghrelin) and satiety (leptin). If you don’t get enough sleep your levels of hunger hormone ghrelin go up and the satiety hormone leptin go down resulting in greater hunger and potentially consumption of more calories and poorer food choices (1).

2. Sleep decreases your sensitivity to the hormone Insulin. So basically with poor sleep you are less able to regulate your blood sugar and this makes you at higher risk of developing diabetes. The link between poor sleep and shorter sleep duration with developing type II diabetes is actually reported in the scientific literature (2).

3. Sleep promotes immunity. Something on a lot of peoples minds recently has been how to boost their immune system. Well getting better sleep could have a big part to play here. In one study, participants sleep deprived for 48 hours showed a decrease in natural killer (NK) cells (3). NK cells are important in defence against viral infections as well as cancer, so you don’t want your numbers dipping as a result of poor sleep.

4. Sleep helps with memory, concentration and overall mood. This one will not come as a surprise. It has been shown that adults getting less than 7 hours of sleep a night have decreased concentration and memory (4), and that children getting insufficient sleep have poorer mood, and worse behaviour and performance (5).

5. Sleep supports healthy growth and development. In particular of importance to children and adolescents sleep is really important for growth and development, hence the recommendation for 9 hours sleep a night for adolescents compared to 7-8 hours for adults (6).

6. Sleep helps protect against cardiovascular disease. For example, studies have shown a link between disturbed sleep and increased risk of stroke (7), atherosclerosis (8) and increased inflammation (9) (a risk factor for cardiovascular disease).

7. Sleep makes you safer. When you consider that sleep improves concentration and mood, you can imagine that this will make you safer. But consider this, in 2005 sleepiness while driving contributed to 100,000 car accidents in the USA, and 15 000 deaths (10).

I will stop here, as this list is hopefully long enough now to convince you that sleep is super important for not only your long term health, but also your happiness in the moment.

I am sure you have quite a few ideas on how you could improve your sleep quantity and quality, but if you are in need for further tips, stay tuned for my next post in which I will share some sleep enhancing strategies.

Fabia x

1. Morselli L, Leproult R, Balbo M, Spiegel K. Role of sleep duration in the regulation of glucose metabolism and appetite. Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2010 Oct;24(5):687-702. doi: 10.1016/j.beem.2010.07.005. PMID: 21112019; PMCID: PMC3018785.

2. Mesarwi, O., Polak, J., Jun, J., & Polotsky, V. Y. (2013). Sleep disorders and the development of insulin resistance and obesity. Endocrinology and metabolism clinics of North America, 42(3), 617–634. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecl.2013.05.001

3. Oztürk L, Pelin Z, Karadeniz D, Kaynak H, Cakar L, Gözükirmizi E. Effects of 48 hours sleep deprivation on human immune profile. Sleep Res Online. 1999;2(4):107-11. PMID: 11382891.

4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Effect of short sleep duration on daily activities — United States, 2005–2008. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep2011;60(8):239–42

5. Fallone G, Owens JA, Deane J. Sleepiness in children and adolescents: clinical implications. Sleep Med Rev 2002;6(4):287–306 10.1053/smrv.2001.0192

6. Colten HR, Altevogt BM, editors. Sleep disorders and sleep deprivation: an unmet public health problem. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research. Washington (DC): The National Academies Press; 2006

7. Elwood P, Hack M, Pickering J, et al Sleep disturbance, stroke, and heart disease events: evidence from the Caerphilly cohort Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 2006;60:69-73.

8. Friedlander AH, Friedlander IK, Yueh R, Littner MR. The prevalence of carotid atheromas seen on panoramic radiographs of patients with obstructive sleep apnea and their relation to risk factors for atherosclerosis. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 1999 May;57(5):516-21; discussion 521-2. doi: 10.1016/s0278-2391(99)90065-4. PMID: 10319824.

9. van Leeuwen WMA, Lehto M, Karisola P, Lindholm H, Luukkonen R, Sallinen M, et al. (2009) Sleep Restriction Increases the Risk of Developing Cardiovascular Diseases by Augmenting Proinflammatory Responses through IL-17 and CRP. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4589. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0004589

10. Vaca F. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notes. Drowsy driving. Ann Emerg Med 2005;45(4):433–4 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2005.01.015

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