Sleep and Your Health

Sleep plays an important role in both mental and physical health. It allows the body to “reset” so to speak, regulating hormone production and boosting energy levels. Unfortunately, many people struggle to get the recommended 7-8 hours of shut eye per night, placing them at risk for a wide variety of problems. To learn more about the importance of sleep and how it impacts your health, keep reading.  

Improves Memory If you have trouble remembering things throughout the day, try going to bed a little earlier. When you're snoozing away at night, your mind is busy arranging all of your thoughts and memories. Sleep experts say this is critical to our brain's memory function, as it allows is to remember things from the previous days with greater ease.  

Prevents Under-Eye Bags I think we've all experienced this scenario at some point in time: you stay up late at night, and when you wake the following morning you notice dark bags under your eyes. This condition occurs from the congestion of venous blood in the soft tissue surrounding your eye. It's unclear how exactly lack of sleep triggers this phenomenon, but it happens nonetheless. The good news is that you can often hide under-eye bags with a little bit of makeup, or even better use an eye cream like our Complete Eye Cream before you go to bed at night to help address that problem.  Ultimately, getting more sleep is the best solution to helping eliminate those under-eye bags once and for all.  

Protects Against Illness Sleep is directly linked to the body's autoimmune function. In other words, people who don't get enough sleep are more likely to succumb to illness or disease. The autoimmune system is your body's first line of defense against foreign invaders. But when you constantly stay up into the late AM hours, it loses its effectiveness, placing you at risk for illness.  

If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, here are some tips that may help:  

Turn off the television. Some people are in the habit of leaving a “background” noise on, such as the TV, but this interferes with sleep patterns.

Invest in black-out curtains. These curtains are designed with special materials to block out a greater portion of light than standard curtains.

Put away the smartphone. Grab a book or a magazine instead! Reading can help relax you at the end of the day, unlike your cell phone which might keep you awake longer.

Try to exercise more throughout the day. This will leave you physically exhausted at night, at which point you should fall asleep more easily.

Avoid drinking caffeinated beverages for at least 4 hours before you go to bed. Instead drink an uncaffinated tea with chamomile or peppermint instead.  

Sweet dreams!