The Habits of Health system is a comprehensive approach to optimal wellbeing. We address every area of health, explore how they overlap, and give you a practical, step-by-step approach for making the choices that create lasting vibrant health.
Even though the Habits of Health system is comprehensive, a few topics come up again and again.
It’s not that they are more important than other facets of health, but certain areas of health either have such clearly powerful rewards or are such a consistent challenge for people that we tend to come back to them more frequently. Reaching a healthy weight is one of the areas because of the many benefits that simply reaching a healthy weight can bring, but that process is unfortunately difficult and confusing for many.
Habits of Healthy Sleep are another area that we address frequently for the same reason. Getting a healthy amount of sleep each night ripples into every other area of health, so getting a win in this one area is a big win for your overall health.
But how big is that win, exactly?
Well, a new study published by the journal Sleep equates a healthy night’s sleep with the feeling of winning the lottery. No, really. In a study of UK households, researchers found that a good night’s sleep was roughly equivalent to 8 weeks of therapy or winning a jackpot of $250,000. Measuring the value of sleep in these terms might sound silly at first, but with so many people not getting healthy sleep the problem is so severe that the medical world is trying to find new ways to communicate just how important it is.
This research is especially interesting when we consider how expendable sleep is often considered. Have an extra project? Just work extra late. Want to have fun on the weekend? Throw away a night or two of sleep. As a society, we seem to think that sleeping less and feeling the ill health effects—from feeling generally unwell all the way through irritability and additional weight gain—are somehow acceptable or negligible.
When you start to think about your sleep in terms of its real value—8 weeks of therapy or $250,000—hopefully it will be harder for you to ignore it. Once you recognize the value of sleep, we’re here to help! This blog post is a great place to start.
Start cashing in on this Habit of Health today!