5 reasons why you need a good night’s sleep

If you aren’t getting your 8 hours of sleep every night here are 5 important reasons that will get you rolling into bed earlier tonight.

1. Health

Experts claim a consistent lack of sleep can leave you with devastating health consequences in the long run. Multiple studies have found a direct link between inadequate sleep and health related issues such as heart disease, heart attacks, diabetes, and obesity.1

2. Higher risk of injury

It might seem obvious but not sleeping enough increases your chances of any type of accident when you’re feeling exhausted.2 Fatigue is one of the big three killers on NSW roads.

According to Transport of NSW3:

• Fatigue-related crashes are twice as likely to be fatal – as drivers who are asleep can’t brake
• In 2012 more people in NSW died in fatigue-related crashes than drink driving accidents
• Being awake for about 17 hours has a similar effect on performance as a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.05

3. Weight control

Getting the recommended amount of sleep can help maintain weight as you are much more likely to commit to exercise and an active lifestyle. On a deeper level, the hormone leptin falls when a person is not having enough sleep. This hormone plays a crucial role in making a person feel full, with less of this hormone, a person is more likely to over-eat and crave a high fat diet.4

4. Better memory

Studies have suggested that while we sleep, our brains process and consolidate our memories from the day. With inadequate sleep, those memories are more likely to not get stored correctly and be lost.

5. Stronger immunity

One preliminary study showed that those with 7 hours or less of sleep per night were almost 3 times as likely to get sick when exposed to a virus, than those with at least 8 hours of sleep per night.

1, 2, 4 https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/10-results-sleep-loss

3 //roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/stayingsafe/fatigue/index.html