Sleep is probably the most important health regime you can follow. Here are 10 reasons why a good rest is absolutely essential:
1. Good sleep makes you beautiful
Between 22:00 and midnight is the time of the so-called “beauty sleep”. There is a belief that early sleep hours conduce to health and beauty. Beauty sleep can really enhance your appearance because it is at this time that skin, muscles, and eyes heal and repair, thus improving mood and self-esteem.
2. Sleep reduces stress
The accumulated stress during the day is magically erased with the regular eight-hour sleep. Sleep is a natural medicine, which you can take at the end of the day to give you extra energy for the next morning.
3. Sleep restores and energizes
Sleep is very important for athletes because the body is at peace and this is the longest period of muscle growth. Sleep is no less important for a non-sports person, too. While each of us has his good night sleep, our bodies work to improve our health and to give us a good feeling.
4. Sleep heals
Sleep is good for many diseases – mental, neurological, cardiac problems. It is no secret that due to the immune mechanism, which is activated during sleep, even a person with a cold or flu is feeling much better in the morning and is almost healed.
5. Sleep calms down
Try to get used to some soothing herbal teas in the evening (lemon balm, lime, mint, valerian, etc.), sweetened with honey. This, in combination with sleep, will give you a fresh waking, with calmed body and mind, fully ready for a new day.
6. Sleep helps to positive thinking
The morning is wiser than the evening, preaches an old fairy tale. And it is very true. Due to the build-up of information, at the end of the day, our mind often falls into lethargy or depression. Forget the pills! Just take a good night sleep – the world looks different with the sunrise.
7. Sleep stimulates creativity
Good sleep improves the function of the brain and sharpens the senses. Even when you sleep, your brain continues to work and make connections between otherwise incompatible concepts or ideas. This, in turn, is a good ground for the creative process.
8. Sleep helps the assimilation of new information
Your mind is a not room that can be endlessly filled with furniture. To apprehend a new information, you should erase part of the unnecessary data. Sleep helps us with this task – it cleans up, defragments and allows us to move forward.
9. Sleep gives birth to new ideas
Dreams are sometimes real pageants of colors and events. People with great imagination dream amazing things. Remember the story of Newton, the apple, and the gravity concept? Most inventions in human history came during sleep or in the bathroom – places where people tend to be the most relaxed.
10. Sleep helps children grow
And not the least important, though left as the last point. As babies, children spend about 17 hours sleeping, which falls down to 10 hours in teenage. Given that in this period they accumulate and process data that amounts approximately to what they get the rest of their life, that dream is extremely necessary.
How to get a good night sleep?
Room temperature
It is extremely good for your health to sleep in a relatively cool room, around 18° in winter and 26° in summer, depending on the geographical latitude (the quoted numbers are for Bulgaria). Also, be aware that wide temperature amplitudes are not recommended. Tourists know that when sleeping outside in a camp, even 5 degrees are not big a problem. Do not be afraid of cool air!
Water Taking a shower before and after sleep is as pleasurable as it is healthy. Shower water cleanses the remnants of the accumulated stress and fills the body with freshness and harmony. Your body is 70% water and loves the contact with it. Drink more than 2l a day. Water is health!
Environment
Clean the bedroom of all redundant things. Your mind will relax better in a pleasant atmosphere. Avoid placing TV sets, sound systems or other electrical appliances in the bedroom and around the bed. Instead of a film or TV program, try to go to bed with a good book.
Ceremony
Develop your personal ceremony before going to bed – a cup of tea, a hug, a half-an-hour walk, cool shower, a book. Your mind and brain love ceremonies, these regularly repeated actions, which calm and provide a sense of security. Your mind also loves beauty, slow motion, and positive atmosphere.