5 Ways to Improve Your Life with Better Sleep

The key to improving your overall wellbeing might be in your sleeping habits!* Here are 5 ways to improve your life with better sleep:

Better Sleep, Better Cognitive Function

We’ve all had those days when we knew that our itchy eyes, drowsy feeling, inability to concentrate, and a possible grouchy attitude were all symptoms of not getting enough sleep the night before. Days like that are rough enough every once in a while, so can you imagine the impact on your overall wellbeing if those days become more and more frequent? By regularly getting better sleep, you can sharpen your thinking skills, improve your memory (not only chunks of information, but how to accomplish tasks), increase your productivity, improve your attention span and problem-solving skills, and even get your creative juices flowing! Related: SleepSwag Sleep Masks and Student Success

Physical Benefits (Your Body will Thank You)

Your body often uses your sleep cycle as an opportunity to heal and process everything that happened to you during the day. If consistent lack of sleep prevents your body from going through this process on a regular basis, you run the risk of developing serious health problems over time. Untreated chronic sleep problems have been linked to weight issues and other health problems. On the other hand, by getting better sleep for your body you could possibly improve muscle recovery, lower your heart rate, maintain or even lower your risk for certain cancers, and have more energy to enjoy a healthier lifestyle! Related: Yoga, Meditation, and Sleep

Relationship Building

Growing and nurturing the relationships in our lives can sometimes require extra patience and strong communication—two things that can be pretty difficult if you’re plagued with poor sleep. By improving your sleep, you can set yourself on the right track to maintaining healthy, positive relationships with those important to you. Better sleep has also been connected to a boost in libido, so your spouse might thank you for an improved bedroom relationship, as well ;) Related: SleepSwag’s Top 5 Gifts for the Sleep Lover in Your Life

Treat Yourself to Beauty Sleep 

Has anyone ever told you that you look tired? Yeah, we cringe when we hear that. What do they hope to achieve by pointing that out, anyway?! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), “beauty sleep” is a real thing. According to Sleepdex, “Early in the nighttime sleep cycle, people typically have a surge in growth hormone … what people call ‘beauty sleep’ as secretion of growth hormone helps repair and rebuild body tissues like muscle and bone.” If there’s a chance that taking care of our sleeping habits will help us toss that $60 night crème, we’ll take it!

Stave off Illness

If your body isn’t getting enough downtime to heal itself while you sleep, that could mean that it’s working harder than it needs to while you’re awake. According to Mayo Clinic, “studies show that people who don’t get quality sleep or enough sleep are more likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus, such as a common cold virus. Lack of sleep can also affect how fast you recover if you do get sick.” Getting nervous about how many sick days you have left at work? Maybe you should consider taking an assessment of your sleeping habits.

What Now?

It’s important to note that you should take a “quality vs. quantity” approach with sleep habits. Just because you’re in bed for 8 hours every night does not mean that your body is getting quality sleep. On another note, adults who consistently get too much sleep (more than 9-10 hours per night) can run into just as many problems as adults who are sleep deprived. Everyone’s approach to better sleep is unique. One easy way to improve your sleep is by trying a high quality, light blocking sleep mask. Click here to check out our masks, available in 20 unique designs. Continue the conversation with us on social media. We’d love to hear what you think!

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Sweet Dreams, -The SleepSwag Team    *We’re not here to diagnose or treat anyone. We’re just crazy sleep lovers who want to make people happy and sleep better through the use of sleep masks, which you can find here in our shop. If you have concerns about your health, we always recommend consulting a trusted doctor.