Parents of babies, students preparing for exams, overworked professionals, insomniacs, caffeine addicts, night-shift employees, & menstruation women—we all know how horrible lack of sleep feels.
Though occasional sleeplessness is common, severe sleep deprivation can impair our bodies & minds.
Heidi Riney, MD, chief medical officer of Nox Health & board-certified sleep medicine & neurology psychologist, says sleep is vital for brain development.
Sleep has long been thought to be a passive process, but it’s actually an active state, and the quality and duration of our sleep impacts crucial brain functions.
Including memory storage, attention maintenance, arousal, learning new material/tasks, & mood stability.
The ability to read social cues, problem-solving, executive functioning, and impulse control.
What happens if you don't get enough sleep? How do you go through days when you didn't sleep enough?
Sleep and mental health professionals were consulted. It's difficult to determine how much sleep your brain needs to function well.
Cook thinks most adults require 8–9 hours of sleep to work well.1 Since this estimate is a bell curve, some people require more and some less to feel wonderful.