The cost of poor sleep is undeniable–it’s essential to your total health and wellness. Sleep keeps you healthy, re-energizes your body, and helps it heal and cope with stress. From weight management, improved mental health and focus to preventing and overcoming illness, sleep comes with many benefits.
Sleep and Your Immune System
Sleep is restorative and supports important bodily processes. A lack of sleep increases your chances of getting sick because your immune system isn’t performing to its best ability. Without quality sleep, you’re more likely, for example, to get sick after being
exposed to a virus such as the common cold virus. A lack of sleep can also affect how fast you recover after getting sick and, long term, increases your risk of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
Sleep deprivation can decrease the production of cytokines–proteins released by the immune system that also help promote sleep. Production of certain cytokines needs to increase when you have an infection, inflammation, or are under stress. The production of these protective proteins is compromised by a lack of sleep, and their numbers can even decrease. Since they play an important role in the development of cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, their healthy production is critical. Infection-fighting antibodies and cells are also reduced during periods of sleep deprivation.
Ideally, the human body requires 7-9 hours of quality sleep to recharge and keep its immune system healthy.
The Relationship between Diet, Exercise, and Sleep
Diet, exercise, and sleep are three lifestyle pillars that can make or break your overall wellness, physical health and mental health. Eating a healthy, balanced diet mitigates a myriad of health conditions. What we eat also impacts sleep quality and duration. Caffeine is notorious for making it difficult to sleep. Eating close to when you go to bed can lead to sleep disruptions. An overload of calories or fat in your diet can make it harder to get enough sleep as does a diet that lacks key nutrients (i.e. calcium, magnesium, and vitamins A, C, D, and E).
In fact, there’s a growing body of evidence that shows just how much certain vitamins and sleep are related. Vitamin D can help regulate circadian rhythm (your internal clock) and has been studied as an “activator” of two circadian clock genes (which have a major influence on your sleep-wake cycle). Since sunlight is the best source of Vitamin D at and the primary regulators of everyone’s circadian rhythm are light and darkness, Vitamin D seems to be a mechanism of keeping your sleep cycle in-sync with sunlight. In this light, Vitamin D is actually more so a hormone than a dietary supplement, but you can also receive Vitamin D through fatty fish, egg yolks, and fortified foods like dairy and juice.
Exercise is a health essential from which nearly every system in the human body benefits. Some immediate benefits result from exercise like reduced anxiety, lowered blood pressure, and better sleep. Working out can also reduce the risk of sleep disorders like insomnia and restless leg syndrome in addition to reducing pre-sleep anxiety and even improving sleep quality in people with insomnia. Aerobic exercise and
resistance training can improve sleep quality, and generally any type of exercise can improve sleep, although young people usually require more exercise than older people to see the same benefits. Between two studies, a 12-week aerobic and resistance training program showed a 25% reduction in the severity of obstructive sleep apnea and 39% reduction in the severity of restless leg syndrome. Exercising also helps regulate your circadian rhythm (your internal clock), helping your body understand the schedule it’s on and priming it for better sleep at night.
How a Lack of Sleep Shows: The Effects of Sleep on Your Skin and Hair
There’s some scientific truth to the idea of “beauty sleep.” Maximizing your sleep can help maintain healthy skin. While you’re asleep, with no UV exposure or dynamic facial expressions (facial muscle contractions), your skin is able to rest and repair. Your skin goes into restore mode when you’re asleep, removing toxins, repairing cells and DNA damage caused by the environment, and replacing aging cells and creating new ones. Because of this, skin looks fresher, younger, and more radiant after good quality sleep. If you cut down on sleep, it’ll show through your skin (i.e. dark under eye circles).
A lack of sleep also interferes with hormones that can interfere with wound healing, promote early aging, and lead to acne flares as a result of prolonged high cortisol levels (cortisol levels decrease while you sleep). A 2014 study found that elevated cortisol levels could lead to an increased risk of the skin condition psoriasis as well as slowing wound healing time by 20%.
A restorative night’s sleep is also detrimental for your hair’s health, impacting the protein synthesis of your hair and the release of enzymes and growth hormones. Your body’s natural hormones are important for preventing hair loss. One of these hormones is melatonin, which helps your body regulate your sleep cycle and has been shown to increase hair growth and even cause hair loss when levels are decreased (your body produces higher levels of melatonin when you sleep and decreases these levels when you’re awake). Sleep deprivation can eventually lead to stress, which has been known to cause hair loss. Moreover, sleep deprivation alone lays the groundwork for hair loss and is one of the major causes of hair loss. Without enough sleep, the body becomes weak, failing to absorb nutrients that maintain health and resulting in a weakened immune system, loss of hair volume, hair condition, appearance and sheen.
Greasy roots are also a symptom of a lack of sleep. Increased stress coupled with a lack of sleep causes a rise in the same hormone mentioned above, cortisol, which is directly related to increased sebaceous oil production. Every hair on your head has its
own, small sebaceous gland under the scalp, so raised cortisol levels affect the oils found on your head and make your hair greasier.
Does Sleep Affect Eyesight?
Dark circles, puffy eyes, droopy eyelids–all signs of a poor night’s rest. However, a lack of sleep affects more than just your appearance, it even affects the health of your eyes. Like your immune system, your skin and your hair, your eyes heal themselves while you sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, your eyes can become dry, itchy, or bloodshot. Without a sufficient night of sleep, your eyes produce less tears, which opens the door to eye infections. You can also experience eye twitches or spasms, light sensitivity, or blurry vision.
Overtime, sleep deprivation can lead to serious eye problems such as glaucoma. People with sleep apnea–a condition in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts while you sleep–are at greater risk of developing glaucoma. Treating sleep apnea can reverse many eye-related symptoms. Since changes in your eyelids, retina, or vision can indicate sleep apnea, an eye doctor may be able to spot sleep apnea during a routine eye exam.
Many people also fear that too much blue light exposure can permanently damage their eyes or increase risk of macular degeneration. These concerns have not been substantiated–evidence of blue light damaging the eye has yet to be uncovered; however, blue light from screens can negatively affect your sleep cycle and contribute to digital eye strain.
Blue light glasses have risen in popularity as life has become more and more digital. These glasses aren’t likely to help with digital eye strain, as blue light isn’t the only culprit to blame for this (when you stare at a screen, you don’t blink as much as you normally would), but they do actually seem to help with sleep. An article published in 2021 gathered data from 63 managers and found that wearing blue light glasses improved sleep quality and duration in addition to improving work performance. So there is some evidence that blue light glasses can prevent screen time from disturbing your sleep, but they are unlikely to mitigate the eye problems that can follow sleep deprivation. There’s no harm in wearing these glasses–some people swear by them. So go for it and try them out, they’re not going to hurt you, and they just might help.
Better Sleep, Better Wellness
Sleep is vital to your comprehensive health and wellness. Your body will reap the benefits of quality sleep. Your body rejuvenates while you sleep, clearing debris from your lymphatic system and in turn boosting your immune system, repairing your muscles, synthesizing sleep-promoting proteins and releasing sleep-promoting hormones, and enabling tissue growth. Sleep is also a powerful stress-reliever. It improves mood and concentration while sharpening judgment and decision-making.
Establish a realistic bedtime and stick to it. Set a comfortable temperature and turn down the lights in your bedroom. Try refraining from looking at screens in your bedroom. Stay away from caffeine, alcohol, and large meals in the hours leading up to your bedtime. Make sure to exercise during the day to help you wind down in the evening. Your body will see the benefits of sleep if you make it a priority to the best of your ability.
