At ProHealth Chiropractic Center, we’re always concerned about the overall wellness of our patients.  Chiropractic care plays a very important role in wellness, but there are other factors as well. Today, we will look briefly at the role sleep plays in wellness.

We’ve all heard the studies about how many American adults don’t get enough sleep. Different studies have different numbers, but their ultimate conclusion is the same every time: Americans are sleep deprived!

For most of us, we don’t make a purposeful decision to skip sleep—it just kind of happens. We are so busy with work, family life, recreation, and everything else that we skimp on sleep because there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

When we skip sleep, we usually feel it the next day. Most people report feeling tired the next day when they get fewer than seven hours of sleep the night before. It takes longer to do work, it’s hard to concentrate, and overall, we are just not as productive as we can be. And usually we are willing to make that trade off in order to cram a few extra hours into our day.

As a Milwaukee chiropractic clinic, we mainly focus on the preventative benefits of chiropractic care.  Chiropractic care is very important, but there are other ways to stay healthy too. For example, new studies are showing, more and more, the preventative health benefits of getting enough sleep. Adults who get enough sleep are much less likely to get sick. Workplace and car accidents are also often caused by groggy people who aren’t paying attention to what they are doing. And one study has even shown the link between sleep deprivation and poor heart health!

If we change our mindset a bit, there becomes a bit more urgency to making sure we get enough sleep. Most people don’t think much of being tired the next day, but if someone told you that you could prevent that week-long nagging cold and cough by getting a little extra sleep, wouldn’t you do it? Or if you knew you could avoid an expensive and dangerous workplace accident by going to bed an hour earlier, wouldn’t that make sense?

So, in addition to taking other preventative health measures like receiving ongoing chiropractic care, get your sleep too! In addition to feeling much better and being more productive, you will be healthier and safer!