5 Key benefits of sleep to your health

Sleep is recognized as a key pillar of long-term health.¹ More people now rank quality sleep as the most important behavior for a long, healthy life, ahead of diet and exercise.²

Yet despite this, 53% of people report getting a good night’s sleep only four nights a week or less² — highlighting a major gap between intention and reality.

After a productive day in the office, at the gym, with the family or out in the field, jumping into bed to rest up is a rewarding way to wind down and recharge the batteries. This way, you’re ready to get up and face the next day with enthusiasm.

A good sleep makes you feel great!

But it offers you so much more than just improving your mood and helping you to feel energised to awaken at your best. Adequate sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle that helps maintain your energy so you can meet each day head on.

In fact, 84% of people say quality sleep is essential for their overall health and wellbeing, even though many still struggle to achieve it consistently.²

Let’s take a closer look at 5 proven benefits of quality sleep.

1. Improves memory, focus and productivity

Sleep affects many aspects of your brain’s functions, including performance, cognition, concentration, memory and productivity.^3,4

While you sleep, your brain remains quite active, undertaking a process called consolidation. The Sleep Foundation and research studies have attributed this to improving your learning ability by strengthening the neural connections that form memories³.

One study actually showed that when medical interns worked extended shifts of over 24 hours and had poor sleep they made almost 36% more serious errors than those who had more sleep.⁵

Getting enough quality sleep is therefore beneficial to improving your mental health and mental capability every day.⁶

2. Enhances physical performance

Quality sleep doesn’t just improve brain function. It has also been shown to improve athletic and physical performance too.⁷

After all, when you’re well-rested, you feel more energetic and in tune with your physical body.

In a study with a group of college basketball players, their goal-scoring accuracy, reaction time and speed showed dramatic improvement when they had healthy sleep time⁸

So whether you’re gearing up for a big game, or you simply want to be fighting fit, quality sleep may be the key.

3. Reduces risk of illness

Getting sufficient sleep every night is important if you want to keep your energy up and get the most out of each day. However, it has also been shown to reduce the risk of illnesses and boost your immune system.⁹

If your physical health is a priority, then it’s important to be scheduling in enough quality shut-eye.

4. Strengthens the immune system

Your immune system maintains your health by protecting your body from infection, viral organisms, and foreign invaders. But when it gets weak, you can become sick and this leads to downtime as you try to recover from a cold or flu, for example. No one has time for that, which is why it’s important to keep it functioning well.

Getting enough sleep every night has been linked to keeping your immune system strong by allowing your body to recuperate and restore itself every night while lack of sleep weakens your immune function.¹⁰

5. Boosts energy and daily performance

Sleep duration plays an important role when it comes to appetite, obesity, and body mass index too.¹¹

Studies have shown that people who get enough sleep tend to consume fewer calories and are even more motivated to exercise, both of which can reduce the risk of excess weight gain and obesity.¹¹ Your body weight can be directly affected by how much sleep you get.

A recent study found that 50% of people reported higher daytime energy levels when they got quality sleep, highlighting its direct impact on daily performance.²

On the other hand, chronic sleep deprivation increases the risk of developing serious medical conditions such as heart disease, increase in blood sugar levels and high blood pressure, to name a few.

How a free sleep assessment can help you

As you can see, getting enough quality sleep offers you a lot of positive benefits towards living a happy, fit and healthy life every day.

While 66% of people say they would seek medical advice for sleep issues, only 23% actually do — meaning many sleep problems remain unaddressed.²

Now that you understand how impactful quality sleep is on your overall health, take action to make sure you’re not among those who overlook potential sleep issues.

If you are getting too little sleep or experiencing problems sleeping, you may wish to consider undertaking our free online sleep assessment to better understand how to improve your restful state and overall health.

The assessment asks you a series of simple questions designed to provide you with more information. It also conveniently sends the results to you via an email.

Awaken your best by taking our free sleep assessment now.

Disclaimer:

This blog post contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider.

If you have any specific questions about any medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this website. The views expressed on this blog and website have no relation to those of any academic, hospital, practice, or other institution with which the authors are affiliated and do not directly reflect the views of Resmed or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates.

References:

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, May 15). About sleep. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html
2. Resmed sleep survey
3. Sleep, Learning and Memory. Health Sleep, Harvard Education.
4. Cognitive benefits of sleep and their loss due to sleep deprivation. Neurology.
5. Effect of reducing interns’ work hours on serious medical errors in intensive care units. N Engl J Med. 2004 Oct 28;351(18):1838-48.
6. How sleep deprivation affects mental performance. Healthy Sleep. Harvard Medical School.
7. Sleep and athletic performance: the effects of sleep loss on exercise performance, and physiological and cognitive responses to exercise. Sports Med. 2015 Feb;45(2):161-86. doi: 10.1007/s40279-014-0260-0
8. The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep. 2011 Jul 1;34(7):943-50. doi: 10.5665/SLEEP.1132.
9. Health Direct, Victoria.
10. Partial night sleep deprivation reduces natural killer and cellular immune responses in humans. FASEB J. 1996 Apr;10(5):643-53.
11. Short Sleep Duration Is Associated with Reduced Leptin, Elevated Ghrelin, and Increased Body Mass Index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. Epub 2004 Dec 7.
12. The association between short sleep and obesity after controlling for demographic, lifestyle, work and health related factors. Sleep Med. 2013 Apr;14(4):319-23. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2012.12.007. Epub 2013 Feb 16.