With each patient who sees our Functional Medicine providers, we address medication and supplement use, medical history, family history, allergies, etc., but we also go over five subjects that typically get overlooked – exercise, diet, stress, fatigue, and sleep.
WHY do we need to sleep so much? It is essential for survival, biological downtime. The brain and all other organs need this time to reset and reboot and restore for the next day, sleeping being the only time for this. It improves memory, mood, and cognition after optimal sleep. Individuals are proven to have improved performance with sleeping 7-8 hours a night. Optimal sleep increases metabolism and reserves the immune system by using that time to repair cells.