Image Source - Huffington Post

Adequate sleep is a key part of a healthy lifestyle, and can benefit your heart, weight, mind, and more. Here are eleven health benefits about a good night’s sleep.

1. Improved memory

Your mind is surprisingly busy while you snooze. During sleep you can strengthen memories or ‘practice’ skills learned while you were awake (it’s a process called consolidation). In other words if you’re trying to learn something new, you’ll perform better after sleeping.

2. Curb inflammation

Inflammation is linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, and premature aging. Research indicates that people who get less sleep such as six or fewer hours a night have higher blood levels of inflammatory proteins than those who get more. People who have sleep apnea or insomnia can have an improvement in blood pressure and inflammation with treatment of the sleep disorders.

3. Boosts  creativity

In addition to consolidating memories, or making them stronger, your brain appears to reorganize and restructure them, which may result in more creativity as well. According to studies, people seem to strengthen the emotional components of a memory during sleep, which may help spur the creative process.

4. Sharpen attention

Children who get less than about eight hours of sleep a night can develop ADHD-like symptoms such as hyperactive, inattentive, difficulty staying focused and impulsive. While sleep deprivation in adults results in sleepiness in children it is the opposite, they more hyperactive.

5. Improves Grades

According to studies , children between the ages of 10 and 16 who have disturbed sleep due to disordered breathing, which includes snoring, sleep apnea, and other types of interrupted breathing during sleep, are more likely to have problems with attention and learning. This leads to significant functional impairment at school.

6. Keeps Weight in Check

Sleeping early can help you loose weight as sleep and metabolism are controlled by the same sectors of the brain. According to research  dieters who were well rested lost more fat, 56% of their weight loss, than those who were sleep deprived, who lost more muscle mass (They shed similar amounts of total weight regardless of sleep). When you are sleepy, certain hormones go up in your blood, and those same hormones drive appetite thus dieters also felt more hungry when they got less sleep.

7. Lowers Immunity

Lack of sleep can suppress your immune system, which makes you more vulnerable to infections. A study found that sleeping for fewer than seven hours a night increased the risk of catching a cold.                                             

8. Lowers stress

When your body is sleep deficient, it goes into a state of stress. The body's functions are put on high alert which causes an increase in blood pressure and a production of stress hormones. Higher blood pressure increases your risk for heart attacks and strokes. The stress hormones also, unfortunately, make it harder for you to sleep.

9. Avoid accidents

Being tired accounts  for the highest number of fatal single-car run-off-the-road crashes due to the driver’s performance. This is for the primary reason that sleeplessness affects reaction time and decision making, and thus can be fatalistic for the person driving. Insufficient sleep for just one night can be as detrimental to your driving ability as having an alcoholic drink.

10. Prevents Depression

A poor night's rest affects happiness as much as tight work deadlines, and it has an even bigger impact on mood than significant income differences in the group. A good night’s sleep can really help a moody person decrease their anxiety and give more emotional stability, where in lack of sleep can contribute to depression.

1. Improves Sexual LIfe

The better rested you are, the better sex you'll have, according to researchers. Not getting enough sleep lowers libido and can make people more likely to have sexual problems like erectile dysfunction. And sleep itself is restorative, it increases testosterone levels, which boosts sexual drive for both men and women.

We're always on the lookout for ways to transform our lives, but sometimes we forget that there's another miracle drug within our control - sleep which will be immensely helpful for the mind and body.