As a college student, it is nearly impossible to get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep per night. With homework, friends, and Netflix, we are being pulled in every direction possible with sleep as our last option. That being said, getting sleep is crucial to health and wellbeing. Here are 5 reasons to get more sleep.
1. Better Health
This one is obvious. Sleep helps you fight off sickness, which is especially important with things like the common cold and ebola going around. The immune system is also able to replenish itself in sleep, preventing viruses from attacking you in the first place.
2. Better Mood and Energy
Another obvious one. When you don’t sleep, you tend to become short-tempered and more easily upset, right? A quick fix to this is to get some more rest.
3. Weight Control
This one you may have heard before. Sleep allows your body to replenish leptin levels, the hormone that sends signals to your brain when you feel full. The less sleep you get, the less leptin you are able to replenish. This is why you tend to get those late-night munchies. Not only that, but those who get less sleep also tend to eat more.
4. Better Memory
If you are in PSYC 109, you definitely know this relationship. Sleep and memory are definitely intertwined. Sleep allows your hippocampus, the part of your brain involved in memory encoding, to solidify these memories so they are less easily forgotten. This is crucial in those all-nighters you’re pulling, thinking they are helping you study. In reality, all-nighters put you at risk of forgetting this information later
5. Clearer Thinking
Similar to memory, sleep allows you to think clearer. I heard recently a similie comparing the brain to a computer processor. When you use your computer a lot, it tends to get hot, load slower, and overall not work at peak performance. It needs to be shut down once in a while to restore. This same thinking applies to the brain. The brain requires time to restore the neural pathways to work at its best.
How can you get more sleep? There are many things you can do, and the first and most important is to power down those screens. LCD displays, such as from your computer or phone, make it harder for the brain to shut down. Another way to get more sleep is to drink more water, quit the caffeine early in the day, and exercise in the morning. Also, having a regular sleep schedule helps maximize the benefits of sleep.