Why Sleep Matters (The Giant List of Benefits)

Sleep is the foundation of everything.

It’s the keystone habit that improves every other aspect of your life.

I’ve spent 5 years researching sleep and experimenting with everything.

I’ve found that quality sleep benefits your life in numerous ways; it’d be shorter to list what it doesn’t help with.

Many people overlook sleep as an extra or a bonus that isn’t relevant.

By the end of this post, you should be convinced that sleep is important in your life.

The Underrated Pillar of Well-Being

You’ve probably heard that:

“You spend 1/3 of your hours sleeping.”

It’s true, but that’s not why sleep is so important.

Sleep is a basic physiological drive necessary to function properly. This is analogous to how hunger is a basic drive and food is necessary to function properly.

Sleep plays a crucial role in:

• Productivity
• Health
• Happiness

Increased Willpower and Discipline

Everyone knows that willpower and discipline are major drivers for success.

Sleep increases your willpower and discipline for other life habits.

Every day, you have moments of decision between a good habit and a bad habit.

Between what you rationally know you should do, and the tempting bad habit you know you should avoid.

When you are well-rested, you naturally choose positive habits more easily, like to:

• Workout consistently, and push yourself for extra reps
• Eat healthy, and avoid junk food cravings
• Work productively, and avoid distractions

Reflect on your discipline recently. You probably have sleep deprivation if you:

• Lack motivation
• Lack discipline and self-control
• Fall asleep during the day

This lack of willpower likely indicates a physiological need for sleep, not personal laziness or a character defect.

Increased Work Performance, Productivity, and Decision-Making Ability

Your brain is your biggest asset.

Quality sleep enhances overall brain function, basically making you more intelligent.

It increases your ability to think clearly, your decision-making ability, and your creativity.

Sleep deprivation is associated with foggy thinking.

Additionally, you’re often unaware of your unclear thinking. It’s as if:

“I didn’t realize my thinking was unclear because my thinking was unclear.”

Sleep deprivation can cause loss of awareness, making you operate as if it’s normal. Basically making you live like a zombie.

In work, quality sleep leads to increased productivity and higher quality work with fewer errors.

How often have you worked for hours while tired, only to discover a mistake that forces you to redo everything?

What a waste of time. Spending many tired hours working gives you an illusion of productivity, leading to frustration and hopelessness with your lack of progress.

This means that, in fact, sleep and work are synergistic goals. Sacrificing sleep does not increase your productivity in the long term.

Increased Focus, Attention, and Learning

Today, you are constantly learning.

• If you are a student, you obviously have to learn a lot of material.
• In work, information and knowledge are crucial.

Quality sleep makes learning easier, because it increases focus, attention, and concentration.

These are crucial for engaging with your learning and absorbing new information.

Quality sleep also improves your memory and learning.

During sleep, your short-term memories and experiences are converted to long-term memory.

If you learn something but forget most of it, what’s the point of learning in the first place?

Sleep and Health

Health is the foundation of life, and sleep is the foundation of health.

Quality sleep is extremely important for overall health.

Quality sleep enhances athletic performance, both in the gym for working out, and for sports. It is also very important for workout recovery, to repair and build muscle.

For men, quality sleep is associated with healthy testosterone levels, which is important for various aspects of male health, including: building muscle, bone density, mood, libido, and overall well-being.

Quality sleep also makes you more physically attractive.

• It makes your skin look better, i.e. healthier and younger. That’s why it’s called “beauty sleep”. Sleep deprivation can also worsen acne (I know this from experience).
• It also helps you maintain a healthy weight, by helping your body’s process of regulating food intake, to avoid overeating and weight gain.

Sleep is associated with various positive health outcomes, including:

• Increased lifespan
• Stronger immune system, getting sick less often, and recovering faster when sick
• Decreased risk of cancer, dementia, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, etc.

There are also many minor miscellaneous health issues, such as:

• Getting sick frequently
• Body aches and pains
• Skin problems

Improving sleep quality can mitigate these issues, as sleep is important for immune system function, and it also involves many restorative processes.

Increased Happiness and Social Presence

Perhaps most importantly, quality sleep literally makes you happier.

Quality sleep improves your ability to:

• Maintain a positive, stable mood
• Regulate your emotions, reducing irritability and susceptibility to mood swings
• Reduce stress and anxiety

This is the most subtle benefit, because people often perceive their mood as static and self-controlled, or as controlled by their life circumstances. Like, “I’m annoyed because the people around me are annoying”.

However, sleep deprivation can make you more irritable, impatient, and moody.

Have you noticed that some days, people seem extra annoying? It’s easy to blame external factors, but it may be because you have sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is also associated with increased stress, and not the good kind of stress.

Finally, sleep increases your personal energy, making you feel more alive.

You truly haven’t lived if you haven’t experienced a few weeks in a row of consistent quality sleep.

What Now?

I hope this helps you see how powerful sleep can be.

I should be writing a lot more about sleep soon. Until then!