The Importance of Sleep

The feeling of waking up after a good night’s sleep is one of the great pleasures of life. Getting enough of it is also critical to our health and well-being: Sleep supports healthy brain function, a strong immune system and physical recovery from the stresses of day to day life. In fact, it’s been shown that getting enough sleep is as important to a person’s overall health as eating a balanced diet and exercising on a regular basis.

Researchers spend a lot of their time trying to figure out what is happening during sleep and how we can get better at it. The results of their efforts are powerful and often surprising. Among their findings:

Before the 1950s, it was thought that sleeping was a passive activity during which a person’s brain and body were essentially dormant. But now it is known that sleep is far from dormant, and is a time when the brain is active and involved in many essential processes.

In fact, the most crucial of these is that sleep helps the brain form new connections – or “neural plasticity” – that help the brain and body process information, think clearly and solve problems. It is this capacity that allows a good night’s sleep to help us to feel alert, energetic and ready for the day ahead.

Other key functions include emotional regulation, promoting optimal growth and healing through the release of the hormone melatonin, and supporting energy conservation by the body through reduced activity. During sleep, the brain is able to consolidate memories, and this memory is believed to be a significant factor in the ability to learn new information.

During REM sleep, the EEG pattern is more like that of wakefulness, but with a lower amplitude of low-frequency desynchronized rhythms, and phasic muscle activity (including REM dreaming). Despite these differences, during this phase, the brain appears very much like it is awake and functioning normally, which is what gives REM sleep its distinctive appearance.

The pace of modern life makes it challenging to find enough time to sleep regularly, and this is a major contributor to the growing number of health problems that people are suffering from today. Insufficient or poor quality sleep is linked to a host of chronic conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, depression and more. And it is an important contributing factor to motor vehicle crashes and other accidents. Despite the many challenges, getting enough sleep is possible. The key is to start early, establish a consistent bedtime routine, and make sure that your environment and lifestyle are conducive to restful sleep.