Welcome

Why should you care about getting a good night sleep?
Sleep like diet and exercise is important for health and performance.

Sleep is heart healthy:
There is now overwhelming evidence to show adequate hours of quality sleep protects the heart. Prolonged or frequent periods of sleep deprivation may decrease lifespan. When we miss sleep we produce stress factors and hormones to cope short term, but with chronic sleep deprivation these same factors add significantly to wear and tear on many body systems. Sleep apnea in particular puts a stress on the heart, from the extra stress caused by drops in oxygen and the need to repeatedly wake up and breath. There is a higher risk of heart disease, including heart attack, heart irregularity, stroke and high blood pressure with sleep apnea. High blood pressure may be hard to control despite medications when sleep apnea remains untreated.

Sleep and metabolism:
Blood sugars are elevated by the stress of sleep disruption. It is more difficult to lose weight when we are sleep deprived due to the changes in appetite and metabolism from the stress factors and hormones.

Reduced performance and productivity:
One of the major functions of sleep is to allow the brain adequate time to organize and store information to improve thinking skills. Good sleep has a structure with deeper stages of sleep achieved after 30 to 40minutes of uninterrupted lighter sleep. If sleep is disrupted all night we may never reach deep sleep despite many hours in the bed. So we can be tired from inadequate quality of sleep even after a long night of sleep. Consequently is becomes more difficult to think clearly, quickly and accurately. Our brain cannot be as productive or efficient. It may feel like we must push to get through the day with no energy or ambition.

Decreased levels of alertness:
Sleepy people are at a higher risk of accidents. Getting no sleep for 24hours impairs drivers equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 1.0. As many as 15 to 20% of transportation accidents are fatigue related.

Mood:
Have you ever been told, if you have a problem, sleep on it? Well that assumes you have a good night of sleep. We process emotions and feelings while we are asleep to keep our emotional balance and to avoid becoming overwhelmed with a clutter of feelings. When we are tired we have less ability to cope with life’s difficult situations, our frustration tolerance is low, we become irritable and we are more likely to feel sad, anxious and depressed.