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Why Is Sleep Important?
Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-
being throughout your life. Getting enough
quality sleep at the right times can help protect
your mental health, physical health, quality of
life, and safety.
The way you feel while you're awake depends in
part on what happens while you're sleeping.
During sleep, your body is working to support
healthy brain function and maintain your
physical health. In children and teens, sleep also
helps support growth and development.
The damage from sleep deficiency can occur in
an instant (such as a car crash), or it can harm
you over time. For example, ongoing sleep
deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic
health problems. It also can affect how well you
think, react, work, learn, and get along with
others.

Healthy Brain Function and Emotional
Well-Being
Sleep helps your brain work properly. While
you're sleeping, your brain is preparing for the
next day. It's forming new pathways to help you
learn and remember information.
Studies show that a good night's sleep improves
learning. Whether you're learning math, how to
play the piano, how to perfect your golf swing,
or how to drive a car, sleep helps enhance your
learning and problem-solving skills. Sleep also
helps you pay attention, make decisions, and be
creative.
Studies also show that sleep deficiency alters
activity in some parts of the brain. If you're sleep
deficient, you may have trouble making
decisions, solving problems, controlling your
emotions and behavior, and coping with change.
Sleep deficiency also has been linked to
depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior.
Children and teens who are sleep deficient may
have problems getting along with others. They
may feel angry and impulsive, have mood
swings, feel sad or depressed, or lack motivation.
They also may have problems paying attention,
and they may get lower grades and feel stressed.
Physical Health
Sleep plays an important role in your physical
health. For example, sleep is involved in healing
and repair of your heart and blood vessels.
Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an
increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease,
high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
Sleep deficiency also increases the risk of
obesity. For example, one study of teenagers
showed that with each hour of sleep lost, the
odds of becoming obese went up. Sleep
deficiency increases the risk of obesity in other
age groups as well.
Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the
hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or
full (leptin). When you don't get enough sleep,
your level of ghrelin goes up and your level of
leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier
than when you're well-rested.
Sleep also affects how your body reacts to
insulin, the hormone that controls your blood
glucose (sugar) level. Sleep deficiency results in
a higher than normal blood sugar level, which
may increase your risk for diabetes.
Sleep also supports healthy growth and
development. Deep sleep triggers the body to
release the hormone that promotes normal
growth in children and teens. This hormone also
boosts muscle mass and helps repair cells and
tissues in children, teens, and adults. Sleep also
plays a role in puberty and fertility.
Your immune system relies on sleep to stay
healthy. This system defends your body against
foreign or harmful substances. Ongoing sleep
deficiency can change the way in which your
immune system responds. For example, if you're
sleep deficient, you may have trouble fighting
common infections.
Daytime Performance and Safety
Getting enough quality sleep at the right times
helps you function well throughout the day.
People who are sleep deficient are less
productive at work and school. They take longer
to finish tasks, have a slower reaction time, and
make more mistakes.
After several nights of losing sleep—even a loss
of just 1–2 hours per night—your ability to
function suffers as if you haven't slept at all for a
day or two.
Lack of sleep also may lead to microsleep.
Microsleep refers to brief moments of sleep that
occur when you're normally awake.
You can't control microsleep, and you might not
be aware of it. For example, have you ever
driven somewhere and then not remembered
part of the trip? If so, you may have experienced
microsleep.
Even if you're not driving, microsleep can affect
how you function. If you're listening to a lecture,
for example, you might miss some of the
information or feel like you don't understand the
point. In reality, though, you may have slept
through part of the lecture and not been aware
of it.
Some people aren't aware of the risks of sleep
deficiency. In fact, they may not even realize
that they're sleep deficient. Even with limited or
poor-quality sleep, they may still think that they
can function well.
For example, drowsy drivers may feel capable of
driving. Yet, studies show that sleep deficiency
harms your driving ability as much as, or more
than, being drunk. It's estimated that driver
sleepiness is a factor in about 100,000 car
accidents each year, resulting in about 1,500
deaths.
Drivers aren't the only ones affected by sleep
deficiency. It can affect people in all lines of
work, including health care workers, pilots,
students, lawyers, mechanics, and assembly line
workers.
As a result, sleep deficiency is not only harmful
on a personal level, but it also can cause large-
scale damage. For example, sleep deficiency has
played a role in human errors linked to tragic
accidents, such as nuclear reactor meltdowns,
grounding of large ships, and aviation accidents.
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