The Purpose of Sleep and Its Benefits-From Sleeping Beauty to Beauty Sleep Part 2

Sleep is most assuredly a biological, mental, emotional and spiritual necessity. Just like we need air to breathe and food for sustenance to survive, sleep is a required activity, and not an optional habit. Here are some of the documented benefits of sleep:

Biological While you sleep, there is restoration and recovery of your cells, muscles and organs, including your biggest organ-your skin. Human Growth Hormone and Melatonin are released while you sleep and that is essential to healthy skin, hair, nail growth and anti-aging benefits. There is also the release of antioxidants and increased immune system strength. With enough sleep there is increased energy, and we can all use more of that during our waking life.

Mental With more sleep, you can expect a sharper mind, better concentration, and increased memory. A more intelligent world is a better world.

Emotional Forget being crabby. With restorative sleep you will have better and balanced mood, less irritability, higher optimism.

Spiritual Two of our favorite reasons to sleep are to “work things out” and an increase in natural intuition. We are only beginning to understand and explore both the physical and the metaphysical benefits of sleep. From personal experience and the research I have conducted, I can tell you that when you sleep at your body’s optimal level, your intuition and physical alertness are increased. You may also tend to remember your dreams more clearly and with more detail and that provides invaluable insight into your life issues, challenges and desires.

Physical Sleeping works above and below. The result is literally increased beauty by increasing your overall health and giving you a refreshed appearance everyone will notice.

Your Sleep Process

How many hours do you sleep? Do you feel it is more productive to sleep less and work more? Are you feeling vital and energetic?

We say “your sleep process” because each person’s sleep cycle is different and unique. There is no cookie-cutter sleep recipe for people of any age, sex or ethnic background. The amount of sleep you need varies from anyone else’s in your life. Even if you sleep the same amount of sleep as someone you know, the way you drift off, your style of sleeping, the sleep position in your bed, your dream life, the kind of mattress or pillow you need, etc. is all your own.

But more often than not, the amount you need to feel refreshed, alert and healthy will be somewhere between 7 and 9 hours. There are also factors like your age, phase of life and general health condition that affect how much sleep you need. However some people need less and some, like you, possibly need as much as 11 or 12 hours sometimes to feel rested.

However most people do not get nearly as much sleep as they need out of guilt or the conditioned belief that sleep is a bad habit. But in the process of sleep certain biological, mental and spiritual necessary processes occur. It may take time to find the amount of sleep that works for your highest health benefit.

So make that time for yourself – YOU are worth it!

Please Continue on to Reading Part 3: What the Heck is Sleep Hygiene-Creating a Sleep Conducive Environment and Banishing Sleep guilt