Sleep Optimally this Daylight Savings Time and Always: Take the Optimal Sleep Challenge!

The more research done on sleep, the more we learn of sleep's prominent role in health and wellness. With Daylight Savings time on the horizon, there's no better time to educate your employees on the benefits of optimal sleep. When we spring forward to daylight savings time we lose an hour which can leave us feeling sluggish for a few days to even a week later. This isn't good news when considering how your employees' productivity levels might be effected. Check out these 10 tips to help you spring forward with ease and continue reading below to learn more about the importance of sleep.

To better support you and your employees' health, we've developed a suite of sleep-centric wellness programs. Select from our 30-Day Optimal Sleep Challenge or REV up your REM seminar to get started sleeping optimally and seeing the results! 

The Importance of Sleep
Dr. Ed O'Malley, Ph.D | January 19, 2018

Every day we hear more information about the importance of getting adequate sleep, and the negative consequences of not getting enough sleep. Sleep scientists have made excellent use of the new tools afforded by advances in molecular biology, computer technology and “Big Data” to expand our understanding of sleep health. Unfortunately, their research also shows that as a culture we still do not value sleep or its role in supporting, or even creating good health.

Luckily, though, the explosive growth of fitness gadgets have added sleep monitoring to their repertoire of physiological recordings. While most of these devices do not accurately measure sleep and are not a substitute for medical grade sleep monitoring, they do provide a window into what is happening at night, and how what we do in the daytime (especially evening) affects how we sleep at night. Anytime we can bring attention to our sleep patterns we are in a position to improve sleep-and that is a very good thing. For example, one may find that the overall sleep amount recorded is reduced significantly the night after a few drinks, or that a late spicy meal was associated with a longer time to fall asleep. On the positive side one may find late afternoon workouts at the gym to ensue a night of deeper, and/or longer sleep. Whatever the case, being mindful of our sleeping habits can facilitate improved overall health and wellness while neglecting to get sufficient sleep can have serious consequences to our health.

The latest scientific research regarding sleep need has provided some startling news. Not only does inadequate sleep increase our chances of developing obesity, Type-2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, but it also weakens our immune system thereby making us more prone to catch a cold or prolong illnesses like the flu. Moreover, there are also more subtle effects of chronic sleep reduction, such as: reduced sex drive, performance, memory and focus. Inadequate sleep can also challenge your balance and increase your likelihood of mood disturbance.

Perhaps the most frightening news to date is the recent discovery of the relationship between poor sleep to dementia in general, and Alzheimer’s disease in particular. It turns out that during sleep we clear out the daily toxins that typically build up during daytime waking activity, while the brain does its work. It is only during sleep, not resting with your eyes closed, that this clearance process takes place. And most strikingly, the main abnormal protein associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, beta-amyloid, is specifically cleared from the brain during sleep. When researchers measured this protein in short sleepers compared to “normal” sleepers, they found quite a significant difference-short sleepers had greater amounts of the protein. In another study of community-dwelling adults, the amount of beta-amyloid protein detected in all sleepers correlated directly with level of sleep disturbance, or reduced sleep amount, participants reported.

The bottom line is that we all need to make sleep a priority, for our health and well-being and that's why we created the 30-Days of Optimal Sleep Challenge: the perfect solution to improve your employee's health through optimal sleep and boost your office's productivity!

Interested in learning more? Contact us today for more information on our Strive 30-Day Optimal Sleep Challenge or REV up your REM seminar!