Sleep has a significant impact on your training, health, and daily life. With the proper amount of quality sleep, you’ll experience several physical, mental, and emotional benefits.
Here are just a few of the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of sleep:
Physical Benefits
Sleep leads to many physical benefits. As far as your workouts and training go, getting enough sleep each night leads to better performance in the gym. While you’re asleep, your body gets to work recovering and repairing itself.
Quality sleep also leads to significant health benefits like lower blood pressure (leading to a healthier heart), reduced inflammation, better control of your appetite, and blood sugar regulation. Getting quality sleep each night also strengthens your immune system.
Mental Benefits
Sleep also impacts your mind. On the nights that you get enough sleep, you’re more likely to wake up alert and ready for the day. Rather than relying on a strong cup (or cups) of coffee, aim to get six to eight hours of sleep each night. Anything less than that has a negative effect on your mental health.
Good sleep improves your cognitive functions, making it easier to focus, make good decisions, and even move with faster reaction times.
Emotional Benefits
Stress, sleep, and emotional health are dependent on each other. Poor sleep quality, coupled with the stress of daily life, creates a tough cycle to break. When you don’t sleep well or don’t get enough sleep, your body responds by elevating stress hormones. A night of quality sleep can stop the production of stress hormones. But if you continue to experience poor sleep each night, your hormone levels never drop – and the cycle continues.
Not only does poor sleep make it more challenging to manage stress, but it’s also hard to regulate and process all of your emotions. Rather than responding calmly to stress and strong emotions, you might become more reactive in your daily life. Making an effort to unplug and unwind at the end of your day prepares you for a good night’s sleep leading to less stress-filled and emotional responses the following day.
The team of coaches at Cannon Fitness and Performance in Houston are here to support you on your fitness journey. To learn more about what we have to offer, contact us today.