SLEEP AND IMMUNITY: WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

Sleep, something we all know and love on a lazy Sunday morning, but throughout the week tend to cut back on in order to fit more into our already busy lives. But do you know the impact on your health of just one bad night’s sleep? Why is sleep critical for your immune system? And how are they intrinsically linked?

According to the NHS, regular poor sleep puts you at risk of serious medical conditions, including obesity, heart disease and diabetes – and it shortens your life expectancy. But before you panic, one bad night will not increase your risk, it’s the cumulative effect. We all know when bad night sleep can make you tired, grumpy and increase your coffee consumption 10-fold.

But in just one night without sufficient sleep, your body makes fewer cytokines, a critical immune health protein that effectively creates our immune response. Cytokines are both produced and released during sleep. This is why sleep is so critical to proper immune health and function making them intrinsically linked.

That is why you may have noticed we recently launched Tonic night time. It combines powerful high doses of Vitamin C (1,500mg), Zinc (25mg) and Montmorency cherry (150mg) to optimize immune function along with Valerian (600mg), chamomile (500mg) and magnesium (150mg) to aid a good night’s sleep.

The idea for the product came after many conversations and discussions with Immunologists, Doctors and nutritionists as to the best way to support the immune system in times of need. Tonic’s lead scientific advisor, Dr Gemma Newman, said;

 “People underestimate the importance of good sleep, it is a critical bodily process. But what most people don’t know is with low levels of sleep our immune system doesn’t actually produce as many white blood cells which help us fight infection”.

Sunna van Kampen, the founder of Tonic Health, says;

“When I discovered studies showing a 70% drop in our natural killer cell function with less than 6 hrs sleep, I knew I needed to create a solution to help people sleep when they are fighting an infection”.

The typical seasonal sniffles, coughs or headaches can make it harder to sleep at night, and unfortunately that lack of sleep can have a profound impact on your immune function and recovery.

This is critical in helping the UK economy get back on its feet with lack of sleep also costing the UK an estimated 200,000 lost working days each year due to poor productivity from a lack of sleep.  According to the 2018/19 Great British Sleeping Habits survey (carried out by One Poll), almost 23 per cent of people living in the UK only get between 5 and 6 hours of sleep per night with 23% of the UK technically sleep deprived.

So if you are reading this close to bed time, grab a sachet and snip, stir and sip our latest delicious soothing night time cuppa and make sure you catch some good ZZZs.