Walk at Home

Sleep Your Way to Better Health

Who knew doing nothing can be the right thing?

The stunning Italian actress Sophia Loren was once asked what the secret was to her radiant beauty. Some special diet? An exotic skin cream?  Sophia said one thing that kept her gorgeous into her sixties and now beyond was beauty sleep! Sophia Loren sleeps nine hours a night, plus a one-hour nap after lunch.

(She also walks for an hour and a half and drinks a liter and a half of water every day. With smart choices like these, Sophia could be the model for the entire Walk program!)

Elevating your activity and sleeping go hand in hand. Don’t feel compelled to sleep ten hours a night, but do make whatever lifestyle changes are necessary to ensure eight quality hours of shut-eye.

For many of us, this requires an adjustment. Immersed in the 24/7 world, it’s too easy to think of ourselves as factory machines.For many of us, this requires an adjustment. Immersed in the 24/7 world, it’s too easy to think of ourselves as factory machines. Sixteen hours of productivity is good, but twenty would be better. Don’t fall for that trap. Good, deep sleep is a vital part of living. While you are snoring away, your body is busy building new antibody cells, adjusting the brain chemicals that regulate mood, reducing stress hormones, and repairing wounds, nerve cells, hurt muscles, and skin. If you don’t sleep enough, this stuff doesn’t happen, which is why people who don’t sleep well have less energy, get more colds, are more irritable, perform poorly on tests, have more accidents and injuries(sleep deprivation causes as many road accidents as drunk driving), and are more likely to be depressed. They also look drained and pale. They even gain weight:  Sleeplessness makes people lethargic and chilly, so they consume more food in an attempt to gain energy and warm up, and their sluggish metabolisms convert that extra food to fat.

So be sure to remember; when you sleep for eight or nine hours, you are not being lazy! You are being responsible in taking care of your body, mind and well-being!