You Snooze, You WIN

February 12, 2018

We, as humans, need 3 things to survive: food, water and sleep. Sleep is so vital that depriving a person of sleep was used as a form of torture. Sleep is your body's time to heal, recover and build new muscle. You exercise during the day, but you get stronger while you sleep.

Lack of sleep has been linked to anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and a host of other ailments. Make sleep a priority and you will start to notice greater mental clarity, faster recovery, easier weight loss and all sorts of other good things.

Just ask Mikaela Shiffrin, the U.S. slalom skier expected to win several medals in the Winter Olympics. Shiffrin gets an average of 9 hours of sleep per night, PLUS she takes a 1 hour nap each day. Former NBA star Steve Nash reports sleeping for 10 hours each night. And Lebron James says he sleeps for 12.

And check out the stats below on the Stanford men's basketball team who participated in a sleep study in 2011:

These are not your average individuals, obviously, but the same amazing things can happen to us regular people as well. Click here for some tips on how to improve YOUR sleep!