We all know that sleep is good for us, but few of us know what’s actually going on inside of our bodies when we’re slumbering peacefully.
While some of your systems are “down” for the night, others leap into overdrive to repair and restore you in ways that cannot be achieved during a wakeful state.
During sleep, the body is in an “anabolic state”, in which the body conserves energy and repairs itself, the opposite to the daytime “catabolic state”.
In this repair mode, the body makes a hormone called HGH which repairs muscles and bones with the amino acids you get from your diet.
The body releases other hormones in the body during sleep, including love hormone oxytocin and ADH, which prevents the urge to urinate while you sleep.
Studies show that getting enough sleep is necessary for protecting bones, as well as the connecting tendons, ligaments, and cartilage that keep us all together.
Sleep helps rejuvenate the tissue inside bones called bone marrow, which contains health-sustaining stem cells that form the body’s immune cells.
Thus, sleep helps maintain healthy immune function.
Not only that but your spine needs some stress relief at night to keep the back aligned and pain-free.
That’s why it’s important to sleep on a proper surface like a good mattress, which promotes a natural alignment.
And as for the brain, it removes toxins that are built up during waking hours to allow the itself to function normally the next day.
Sleep increases the cells that form myelin, the essential nerve tissue that protects the brain and spinal cord from neurological damage.
Sleep deprivation makes the body produce more of the stress hormone known as cortisol, which causes inflammation, contributing to the breakdown of skin collagen.
Less collagen = more wrinkles!
Hit the sack early to prevent those under-eye circles, swollen eyelids, and premature wrinkles.
As if that wasn’t motivation enough for getting to sleep early, staying awake too long reduces the body’s level of leptin and increases ghrelin levels, which can lead to weight gain.
These hormones are essential to regulating appetite and metabolism.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Our body does so many amazing things while we sleep that science is still learning all about it.
It’s likely we will find out even more about the importance of sleep in the coming years, so play it safe and get your rest.
Here are some more resources to help you:
- Benefits normal sleep and circadian rhythms with a blend of five nutrients and botanicals from DaVinci's Sleep Benefits
