Sleep is one of the most important pillars of anyone’s health journey. This crucial aspect of the human experience is about more than just feeling energized for the day ahead, it also plays a big role in several aspects of health and wellness. Good quality sleep helps support healthy immune systems, cognitive functions, and what may surprise you, even heart health.
If you have been wanting to find out more about how good quality sleep is important for achieving your best heart health, here is everything you need to know!
How Does Good Sleep Help Your Heart?
When you think of activities that support a strong healthy heart, you most likely think of things like running, swimming, most aerobic exercises in general, as well as certain practices, like yoga. Maybe even heart-healthy foods and drinks like veggies and green teas come to mind, but sleep might not. This makes sense as the health of the heart organ is often associated with activity, and sedentary life styles have a higher risk of developing heart disease.
The truth is, sleep is a vital part of even the most active lifestyles and plays an important role in helping keep every aspect of a person healthy – including their heart. Sleeping too much or pursuing a sedentary life style is not something that should be associated with what is quality sleep. A lack of good exercise and movement along with healthy eating habits can still raise the chances of heart disease even with a good amount of sleep.
There are two main ways that quality sleep helps promote strong heart health. The best way that sleep helps promote heart health is by supplying the body with the rest and energy it needs to continue being active and healthy, and by positively impacting blood pressure.
How Does Sleep Impact Blood Pressure?
It’s probably a given that sleep is necessary for helping to promote a healthy, active lifestyle as good sleep is replenishing and energizing. When people get the right kind of sleep and enough of it, they have the energy to pursue their health goals to the best of their abilities. Good sleep in many ways is just as important as healthy nutrition and physical exercise itself. You take away quality sleep, and it becomes very hard to move toward your goals.
But how does sleep affect blood pressure, and why is this good for your heart?
Sleep itself is made up of cycles that are divided into four stages. Each stage plays a specific role in taking the body from alert and oriented, to relaxed, and deeply sedated. The last stage, REM, is one of the most important stages because the brain is most active, however, the body is completely sedated and immobilized. During a full sleep cycle, the body’s blood pressure will naturally lower and this is good for heart health. This safe, healthy lowering of the blood pressure gives the heart a little bit of a break.
People who may suffer from not getting good quality sleep oftentimes also suffer from experiencing too much high blood pressure. Sleep is a powerful way to reset your entire system, including lowering your blood pressure and promoting heart health.
How to Promote Good Sleep and Heart Health
If you have been wondering how to help your body get the much-needed and important sleep that it needs, here are some tips to keep in mind!
Try a Cellular Supplement
As people age, it’s common to develop trouble with falling asleep. This is a natural part of aging, and there are cellular supplements that have anti-aging effects that may help increase sleep quality. One of those is CoQ10, which is an enzyme that helps boost mitochondrial health.
The coq10 benefits are robust and help support whole body health because they help support cellular function. By giving your cells the nutrition they need to reinvigorate mitochondrial health, you may be able to help impact a lot of symptoms brought on by aging, which could include trouble sleeping.
Cut Out the Screens
Another thing that may help improve sleep quality is cutting out electronic screens before bed. Blue light waves that are emitted from things like computer screens, or cell phone screens, may have a negative impact on the brain’s ability to enter REM sleep. Try spending time off the devices before bed and see if it helps improve your sleep quality.
Conclusion
Finding ways to help improve your sleep quality will ultimately help improve your heart health. Whether that’s using CoQ10 benefits that help improve various functions of the body or developing stronger sleep routines. The good thing about investing in your sleep is that better sleep has a high ROI. Higher quality sleep gives benefits that you can appreciate and positively impact several aspects of your life.