Friday, Sep 25th 2009

Why You Might Want to Go to Bed Early Tonight

I don't know about you, but I always feel there's never enough time in the day. So, I end up staying up much later than I really should - catching up on emails, reading, straightening up the house - you name it. But those lost hours of sleep are not such a good idea.

While I was up late last night catching up on the Science Section of the New York Times, I came across a short article by Anahad O'Connor that made me want to jump into bed.

He writes of a study for The Archives of Internal Medicine about sleep and susceptibility to colds. The study found that sleep and immunity are tightly related. As a matter of fact, mammals that require the most sleep also produce greater levels of white blood cells - those cells that help fight disease.

And people who get less than seven hours a night were three times as likely to get a cold as people who got at least eight hours.

Protecting your immune system with more Zzzs sounds like a sensible approach, don't you think?

Are you getting enough sleep these days?

You might also like to read:
How much sleep do you need?
Improving sleep - without medication
Sounds that go boom in the night