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Sleep. We all know we need it, after a long day or grueling workout it’s hard to keep your eyes open at times. But what is adequate sleep? Are you getting enough? Do you even need that much sleep or just another cup of coffee. Well let’s take a look at some of the things we do know.

First, what are we actually doing and whats happening to our bodies when we sleep. Sleep is a period of rest, it contains to cycles REM, and non REM, and our body cycles between the two. REM stands for rapid eye movement, during this stage the brain is as active as when awake. All muscles are just immobile except for vital organs, and the eyes. This is what keeps us dreaming, but from actually acting out our dreams. Being sleep deprived can cause your brain to have to work in over drive during wake periods, leaving you foggy and less focused. This can even affect mood and physical performance.

Like we mentioned above, sleep is not only crucial for mental, but also physical health. During sleep, your body produces hormones that help fight off stress, recover muscles and tissues, and support your immune system to help fight off illness. Lacking in sleep can not only leave you feeling tired and groggy, but it can affect reaction time, mood, increase blood pressure, RHR (Resting Heart Rate), and can even affect weight gain. It is also been widely studied that people who consistently do not get enough sleep have an increase in ALL CAUSE morbidity. Yeah, kinda freaky right?

Okay so sleep is important, how much do I need? This varies among age groups. The best thing one can do is listen to your body. If you’re tired, you’re probably not getting enough sleep, if you feel rested, you probably are. For a typical healthy adult 8 hours is usually the recommended number. But that is just the starting point, adults with higher activity output, more stressful working environments, or even a higher demanding home life ie. a small child who constantly needs your attention all may require a higher amount of sleep throughout the week. Wearing a device like a Whoop Band, Fit Bit, Apple Watch, or any other health and fitness tracker can be a good way to track what your body burns throughout the day, and some can even help track your sleep at night. We personally like the Whoop Band, which not only tracks your daily strain, and recovery, but gives you a suggested output for the next day based on how well you recovered. If you want to give whoop a try, check it out here.

We all can struggle at times getting into good sleep habits, don’t beat yourself up, just try to be a little better each day. A few suggestions we have for getting into a better routine.

• Have a schedule. Going to bed, and waking up at consistent times is proven to help your body fall asleep faster, and get better more productive sleep.
• Have a dark room. Lights are proven to increase serotonin in the brain, which is the time to get up hormone.
• Turn off the screens 60min before bed. Blue light that comes from our phones, laptops, and tvs also increases the brains serotonin production, again, signaling it’s time to get up. Which is not in fact what it’s time to do.

There are also many different things you can utilize to help enhance your sleep, fall asleep faster, or stay asleep longer. a few of our favorites are listed below.

Olly Melatonin Sleep Gummies – To help you fall asleep faster, and stay asleep longer.

Sleep Mask – Helps to keep you in the dark.

Noise Machine – Will help to keep you relaxed, keep your mind calm, and drown out any unwanted distractions.

Long story short, get your sleep!