We always hear, “Remember to get your 7 to 8 hours of sleep if you want to function.” Yet, most of us ignore this advice. If you skip sleep, you know the feeling: shuffling around like a zombie and dreading anyone who talks to you before coffee. But missing sleep does more than make mornings tough. Long-term sleep deprivation is bad for your brain and body.
Osteopaths Dr Tayyar Celiker and Dr Harry Williams want you to know why high-quality sleep should be on your daily checklist.
Sleep Quality vs. Sleep Quantity
It’s not just about how much you sleep. The quality matters too. If you’re clocking 7-8 hours but still wake up tired, your sleep quality might be poor (assuming no other medical issues). Sleep quality is personal and tricky to measure, but you can start improving it with these simple tips:
- Stick to a consistent sleep schedule—even on weekends.
- Set a bedtime that lets you get 7-8 hours.
- Only go to bed when you’re sleepy.
- If you can’t sleep after 20 minutes, get up and do something quiet (no screens!).
- Build a relaxing bedtime routine.
- Use your bed for sleep only.
- Make your bedroom quiet, cool, and relaxing.
- Avoid bright lights in the evening.
- Turn off electronics at least 30 minutes before bed.
- Don’t eat a big meal before bed. If you’re hungry, have a light snack.
- Exercise regularly and eat well.
- Skip caffeine in the afternoon and evening.
- Avoid alcohol before bed.
- Drink less water before bed to avoid bathroom trips.
Why Does Good Sleep Matter?
Research shows that quality sleep brings big benefits:
- Better exercise performance and recovery
- Less chronic pain
- Sharper thinking
- Stronger immune system
- Better mood and less anxiety
- Less overall pain
- Improved health and body function
Sleep: The Ultimate Recovery Tool
Forget fancy recovery gadgets. The best tool is free—sleep! Studies show that sleep helps your body heal, boosts muscle growth, and improves hormones like testosterone and growth factor (Chennaoui, M et al, 2021). Sleep also helps your mind, mood, and even reaction times. Poor sleep can increase injury risk, especially for young athletes. So, both sleep quality and consistency are key.
Immune Response
Sleep and your body’s natural rhythms (circadian rhythms) strongly affect your immune system.
When you sleep, certain immune cells become more active. These cells help start the body’s inflammatory response, which is important for fighting off illness. Their activity peaks during the early stages of sleep and drops when you’re awake. That means if your sleep is disturbed, your immune system can’t work as well. Poor sleep increases your risk for chronic inflammatory diseases.
If you don’t get enough sleep, your “fight or flight” system (the sympathetic nervous system) kicks in. This raises your stress hormone, cortisol. High cortisol levels can weaken your immune system, making you more likely to get sick throughout the year.
Mood, Stress, and Anxiety
Sleep quality has a big impact on your mood. We’ve all felt grumpy after a bad night’s sleep!
Research shows that both sleep duration and quality affect your mental and physical health. For example, a study by Triantafillou et al. (2019) found that students who slept poorly had more trouble with academics, health, and mood.
Poor sleep is linked to higher stress, anxiety, and depression. In fact, not sleeping well can predict a higher risk of developing anxiety symptoms in the following year (Zou et al., 2020).
General Body Function
Sleep helps your body’s systems work properly. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body feels more stress and things can go wrong. Poor sleep is linked to many health problems, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, and depression (Finan, Goodin & Smith, 2014).
Long-term sleep problems can lead to serious issues like high blood pressure, heart disease, weight gain, and even some cancers (Medic, Wille & Hemels, 2017).
Pain
Not sleeping well is a strong predictor of pain. Research shows that sleep problems often come before new or worse chronic pain. In fact, 67–88% of people with chronic pain also have sleep issues. At least half of people with insomnia also deal with chronic pain (Finan, Goodin & Smith, 2014).
Lack of sleep lowers your pain threshold. This means things that wouldn’t normally hurt can start to feel painful (Krause et al., 2019). Poor sleep changes brain chemistry and affects how your brain processes pain (Finan, Goodin & Smith, 2014).
So, poor sleep not only hurts your general health, but also increases pain and inflammation. The good news? Improving sleep can really help people with ongoing pain or musculoskeletal conditions (Whale & Gooberman-Hill, 2022).
Memory and Learning
Getting enough sleep is key for memory and learning. When you don’t sleep well, your brain struggles to store new information. This is called memory consolidation. Sleep also helps your brain grow and adapt at every stage of life.
Studies show that people who are sleep deprived do much worse on memory tests. This includes both visual and auditory memory tasks.
REM sleep is the stage when you dream. It’s also when your brain locks in memories and learning. REM sleep happens about every 90 minutes while you sleep. The first REM stage is short—about 10 minutes—but each stage gets longer as the night goes on.
If you don’t get enough sleep, you spend less time in REM. That means your memory and learning abilities can really suffer.
Authors: Dr Tayyar Celiker BSc (osteo) MHSc (Osteo) & Dr Harrison Williams BSc (osteo) MHSc (Osteo)
References
American Sleep Association. What Is Sleep and Why Is It Important? (https://www.sleepassociation.org/about-sleep/what-is-sleep/).
Aschbrenner, K. A., Naslund, J. A., Salwen-Deremer, J. K., Browne, J., Bartels, S. J., Wolfe, R. S., Xie, H., & Mueser, K. T. (2022). Sleep quality and its relationship to mental health, physical health and health behaviours among young adults with serious mental illness enrolled in a lifestyle intervention trial. Early intervention in psychiatry, 16(1), 106–110. https://doi.org/10.1111/eip.13129
Besedovsky, L., Lange, T., & Born, J. (2012). Sleep and immune function. Pflugers Archiv : European journal of physiology, 463(1), 121–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00424-011-1044-0
Chennaoui, M., Vanneau, T., Trignol, A., Arnal, P., Gomez-Merino, D., Baudot, C., Perez, J., Pochettino, S., Eirale, C., & Chalabi, H. (2021). How does sleep help recovery from exercise-induced muscle injuries?. Journal of science and medicine in sport, 24(10), 982–987. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2021.05.007
Finan, P. H., Goodin, B. R., & Smith, M. T. (2013). The association of sleep and pain: an update and a path forward. The journal of pain, 14(12), 1539–1552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2013.08.007
Hershner, S., & Shaikh, I. (Eds.). (2021, April 2). Healthy sleep habits. Sleep Education. Retrieved December 5, 2022, from https://sleepeducation.org/healthy-sleep/healthy-sleep-habits/
Kohyama J. Which Is More Important for Health: Sleep Quantity or Sleep Quality? Children. 2021; 8(7):542. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8070542
Krause, A. J., Prather, A. A., Wager, T. D., Lindquist, M. A., & Walker, M. P. (2019). The Pain of Sleep Loss: A Brain Characterization in Humans. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 39(12), 2291–2300. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2408-18.2018
Medic, G., Wille, M., & Hemels, M. E. (2017). Short- and long-term health consequences of sleep disruption. Nature and science of sleep, 9, 151–161. https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S134864
Miller, K. E., & Gehrman, P. R. (2019). REM Sleep: What Is It Good For?. Current biology : CB, 29(16), R806–R807. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.074
Potkin, K. T., & Bunney, W. E., Jr (2012). Sleep improves memory: the effect of sleep on long term memory in early adolescence. PloS one, 7(8), e42191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0042191
Triantafillou, S.,Saeb, S., Lattie, E. G., Mohr, D. C., & Kording, K. P. (2019). Relationship Between Sleep Quality and Mood: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study. JMIR mental health, 6(3), e12613. https://doi.org/10.2196/12613
Whale, K. and Gooberman-Hill, R. (2022), The Importance of Sleep for People With Chronic Pain: Current Insights and Evidence. JBMR Plus, 6: e10658. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbm4.10658
Zou, P., Wang, X., Sun, L., Liu, K., Hou, G., Yang, W., Liu, C., Yang, H., Zhou, N., Zhang, G., Ling, X., Liu, J., Cao, J., Ao, L., & Chen, Q. (2020). Poorer sleep quality correlated with mental health problems in college students: A longitudinal observational study among 686 males. Journal of psychosomatic research, 136, 110177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110177
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