While many people seek miracle solutions to their aches, pains and health concerns, often an inexpensive solution awaits them each night.
A good night's sleep can do wonders for your body and mind.
Sleep improves your memory, minimizes stress, effectively treats inflammation and helps keep your heart healthy and strong.
Read on to learn how sleep benefits you in these four ways.
Good Sleep Improves Your Memory Significant research indicates that longer, deeper sleep improves both short-term and long-term memory.
But how does this work? Sleep researchers call it memory consolidation.
While your muscles and bones rest, your mind stays busy sorting, organizing and storing everything you experienced during the previous waking period.
The deeper and longer your sleep, the better your mind will forge strong memories and create problem-solving connections between different experiences and thoughts.
Simply put, sleep better to think better.
Minimize and Defuse Stress With Better Sleep Stress and poor sleep create a downward spiral of health problems.
The hormones your body creates to deal with stress makes restful sleep more difficult, and poor sleep stresses your body to invoke even more production of those stress hormones.
So try to break this self-defeating cycle by focusing on getting a good night's sleep.
This applies to both amount and quality of sleep: try getting seven to nine solid hours of sleep and making those deep, restful hours of sleep.
This will reduce blood pressure and reduce stress hormones, breaking the cycle and helping you better handle your stress while making it even easier to get to sleep the next night.
Treat Inflammation With Good Sleep The more researchers and doctors learn, the more they realize that all forms of inflammation seem to be at the core of the deterioration that occurs as a result of stress and age.
Stress hormones and high blood pressure contribute to increased inflammation throughout your body.
Fortunately, a good night's rest helps reduce both stress hormones your blood pressure, thus indirectly but effectively helping you combat inflammation.
Sleep Your Heart to Greater Health In addition to the increase in stress hormones mentioned earlier, lack of sleep also is associated with high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
So when you don't get enough sleep, you increase three significant risk factors related to stroke and heart attack.
So try to get at least seven hours of sleep each night to minimize these risk factors.
I hope this helps you better understand the importance of a good night's sleep.
Better sleep will improve your memory, minimize your stress, treat inflammation throughout your body and help your heart stay strong and young.