Unlocking the Power of Sleep: How Quality Sleep Impacts Your Overall Health

Sleep plays a vital role in your physical and mental well-being. Sleep allows the body to recover during the night, ensuring you feel alert and refreshed the following day. If you have taken your sleep for granted, just know you are missing out on its health benefits. 

Dr. Francisco Marcano of Sarasota Center for General Dentistry is a diplomate of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine (ABDSM) and understands the close relationship between sleep and health. Here’s his insight on the vital role of sleep in your well-being.

How sleep impacts your overall health

Sleep does more than make you feel rested. Sleep is as vital as diet or exercise and yields numerous benefits for physical and mental health. Some include: 

  • Immunity boosting: Adequate sleep is essential for a robust immune system. During sleep, the body produces proteins called cytokines that have protective abilities to fight infection and inflammation.
  • Weight management: Poor sleep can lead to unhealthy weight gain. How? When you don’t sleep enough, your body produces more ghrelin, which makes you hungrier. Also, poor sleep suppresses leptin production, a hormone that controls your appetite. As you’d expect, you’ll likely gain weight when you eat more. 
  • Memory: Sleep plays a critical role in memory consolidation and learning. Adequate sleep helps improve cognitive function, concentration, problem-solving skills, and decision-making abilities.
  • Diabetes prevention: Sleep deprivation causes the body to produce less insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar. Gradually, a buildup of high blood sugar levels can lead to type 2 diabetes. 

Factors that affect your sleep

Several factors can affect the quality of your sleep. Mental illness, certain medications, and supplements can cause you to fall short on your sleep. Similarly, hormonal fluctuations during menopause, pregnancy, and menstruation can affect sleep.

While you can be sleep deprived because of not getting adequate sleep, it can also stem from poor sleep quality. You may sleep for eight hours at night but wake feeling fatigued because of sleep disorders like sleep apnea. Sleep apnea causes multiple awakenings at night. While these awakenings are brief and not remembered, they can affect your sleep and long-term health. 

Visit a dentist for sleep improvement

Would you like to unlock the benefits of restorative sleep but struggling to achieve quality sleep? Welcome to Sarasota Center for General Dentistry! Dr. Francisco Marcano boasts extensive experience in dental sleep medicine and is dedicated to enhancing your sleep quality, even if you suffer from obstructive sleep apnea. Contact us at (941) 900-3555 to schedule your appointment today and take the first step toward rejuvenated sleep and improved well-being.