Sleep is Good for You!

Humans spend about a third of their lives sleeping. That means that if you live to 90, you'll sleep for about 30 years.  Sleep is really important because we cannot live without it and spend so much of our time doing it. But scientists haven’t understood exactly why we need to sleep yet. 

In the past, scientists thought that sleep was mainly to rest and repair the body but over the last 15 years, this idea has changed. We now know that sleep plays an important role in learning, memory, and feelings or our emotional well-being.

When you don't sleep enough, you become tired. There are also bad health effects of not enough sleep. People who don't get enough sleep often eat more and eat unhealthy foods, gain weight, and get ill. You also don't learn as well the next day and have trouble paying attention. For some information learned the day before, it’s like you have missed the opportunity to press the ‘save’ button – it’s gone forever.  You are also have stronger feelings about both nice and horrible events, which can make you feel stressed out, shout at friends and make bad decisions.

You must get enough sleep, and don't sleep with your mobile phone by your side. Sleep is too important to miss or cut short by a text.  And it’s not like you can make up for it the next night – you'll probably have to start from scratch. Remember that most teenagers need at least 9 hours of sleep per night! So here's wishing you many good nights of sleep and sweet dreams.