10 Reasons You Should Go To Bed Before Midnight

Sleep. No-one on earth knows why we need it. Really. There is no scientific explanation for it. But if you do not get enough of it, then you really feel it! Despite this, with our increasingly energetic and hectic lifestyles, most of us do not hit the hay until well past midnight.

There is always that last message you just have to send, or the late night movie that's begging to be watched. Or how about us procrastinators who can only get things done at the last minute with the help of the midnight oil? The days of using the sun as a guide to adjust our sleep patterns are long gone, and that's very much to blame on the fact that we now all have access to electrcity.

But since most people need between eight and ten hours of sleep, in order to wake at 7am with enough sleep, we should ideally go to bed somewhere between 9 and 11 pm! When was the last time you went to sleep at 9 pm, or even 10 pm? It just does not happen. Right?

1. Better Quality of Sleep

As we sleep, we find rest and process important events and concerns in our dreams. Just going to bed slightly earlier may mean a much better quality of sleep. Sleep patterns are not the same throughout the night and we go through several different stages as we sleep. If you watch anyone who has been deeply asleep for a while, you will suddenly see their eyelids start to flicker and move about. This phase of sleep, called Rapid Eye Movement, is typically the stage when we dream.

After this we fall into a very deep, restorative sleep. Getting less sleep at night could mean that a body just does not go through all the stages of sleep and is, in effect, missing out. This could ultimately mean that the brain does not have the time to re-organize itself the way that it should, and we suffer as a result.

2. Get Enough Rest

There is nothing worse than that sleep-deprived feeling that you have just got off a fair-ground ride, complete with all its dizziness – which lasts all day. Anyone who has not managed to get enough sleep to satisfy their bodily needs knows this feeling. Your body has not physically managed to get enough rest during the night to allow its rhythms to re-adjust. As a consequence, it spends the rest of the day doing nothing but craving a little more shut eye. That makes us feel bad, and it also makes us rather unproductive. Both of those are bad things.

3. De-Stress

Just being away from the things and people that stress you out during the day for a longer period of time is the best form of meditation. Let your mind and body relax in bed and give yourself time to unwind and de-stress from all the events of the day. You might not be conscious as you sleep, at least in the traditional sense, but a lot happens. We might not know why yet, but we do know that you need it.

4. Better Sex

Lack of sleep can build up, day after day, and some of us could find that when we are in bed and in the mood, we are simply too tired for anything too physical. The mind can be willing, but the body is not able to get up to anything too enjoyable. Getting the necessary amount of sleep every night means that when the mood strikes us, we are raring to go!

5. Lose weight

Sleeping early has been shown to be beneficial for weight loss. This could be simply because there is less ‘awake time’ while we are eating. But it can be a more profound, biological reason. Our bodies are definitely different while we sleep.

There are different set of hormones at work. Food that we have eaten during the day is metabolized. Another reason is, what do we do when we are awake late into the night? That’s right, eat!

6. Healthy Heart

Research has shown that someone who regularly stays awake past midnight has stiffer arteries that someone who goes to bed early. The reasons for this are not exactly clear. But they could be to do with the things which have already been mentioned – that is, de-stressing and eating less when we go to bed early.

7. More Energy in the Morning

Human bodies need sunlight to function normally. In some way the sunlight resets our body clocks and keeps us functioning and doing the right things at the right time. When we get enough hours of sunlight, we also have enough sleep and this means that we have way more energy in the morning to get more things done. Getting to sleep late and missing half of the next day because we have slept in is a sure path to a low-energy lifestyle.

8. Wake Earlier

Yes, getting to bed earlier means that we do not have to drag ourselves out of bed in the morning when the alarm clock goes off at a ridiculous hour. Instead, we could actually be awake before that alarm clock. Even getting up half an hour earlier than usual could mean that you have time to have a proper breakfast. Or it could mean a more leisurely commute instead of arriving just in the nick of time. In fact, the whole family could benefit from having a few extra moments in the morning.

9. Stop Disease In Its Tracks

All kinds of diseases, from Alzheimer’s to Heart Disease to Diabetes have been linked to sleep deprivation. Of course, a disease is a disease, and there are many genetic and environmental factors why they occur, but recent research has shown that not letting the body get enough rest at night is a significant factor in increasing the severity of these diseases. And when people are examined, who get enough sleep, compared to those who do not, studies have shown that lack of sleep interferes with insulin levels and other types of metabolic activities.

10. Stay Younger

Chronic sleep deprivation just makes you look older. Remember the term ‘beauty sleep’? People did not just make that up. Getting your required amount of sleep every night not only lets your internal body chemistry shift back to normal, but also lets the external cells get re-adjusted. Getting enough sleep lets you get rid of those saggy, baggy, dark rings under the eyes and generally gives you a more youthful appearance.