Within a 24-hour day, it is hard to fit everything in: the commute, work, meals, family time, volunteering, activities for your kids. It all compiles into a quick 24 hours. But two of the most critical components to a healthy lifestyle are probably missing during the busiest of schedules: sleep and exercise.

Everyone knows the importance of eating right and exercising to be healthy, but what about sleep? A good night’s sleep is just as important as healthy food and regular exercise. Did you know that you spend nearly one-third of your life sleeping? So you better be good at it!

Alaska Sleep Clinic is honored to be featured in a blog article written by Champneys, the UK's original health resort.  Champneys reached out to ASC to find out how important sleep is to a marathon runner's physical and mental recovery after an event. In Alaska, we have our Mountain Marathoners who can benefit  from the blog's suggestions, too.

We all have those mornings when, like this little puppy, we did not get an adequate amount of sleep. We push through the day tired, unproductive, and grumpy.

It is no secret exercising is good for your body and fosters a healthy weight while encouraging healthy eating. But did you know exercise helps reduce stress? And a main reason for lack of sleep is stress. If you fall into this bucket, try adding a new exercise routine from the comfort of your bed with yoga.

Many of the world’s greatest athletes eat, sleep, breathe, and live for their sport. But did you know that in addition to physical conditioning and conscious eating, sleep plays a major role in athletic performance and competitive results? The quality and amount of sleep athletes get is often the key to winning. REM sleep in particular provides energy to both the brain and body. If sleep is cut short, the body doesn’t have time to repair memory, consolidate memory, and release hormones.

Are you looking for effective ways to combat insomnia? Have you tried diverse medications but yet to overcome sleep disorder? Worry less, this article highlights how regular yoga and meditation can treat your insomnia. Insomnia simply refers to a sleep disorder, it is a situation whereby an individual experiences difficulty in either falling asleep or staying asleep for the required time. Insomnia has diverse symptoms and this ranges from person to person.

It is dreary, windy, snowy, and bitter cold outdoors most of the fall and winter months for Americans. One of the quickest times of year to gain weight is through the holiday months from Halloween to New Years. Winter is also a challenging time to fit in a workout when you want to cuddle up with a good book by the fire at home. With less daylight and more comfort foods in the cupboards, spending time at the gym is the last place you want to be. But did you know without exercise your sleep can greatly affect your health?

Sleeping well may seem easy in the winter months during gloomy weather and grey skies; but winter can be the hardest time to catch enough zzzz’s. Post-holiday, winter blues can set in, disrupting sleep and creating a long-lasting cabin fever.

More Americans are overweight or obese today than ever before. This upward shift in weight has been triggered across the board by easier access to food and, over the course of the last two decades, a movement toward sedentary jobs. PublicHealth.org also notes that fast food, which makes up more than 10% of the average American’s diet, has played a major role in the obesity epidemic.

It’s no secret that even the smallest adjustments to everyday habits can lead to better health and quality of life, from taking the stairs instead of the elevator, picking water over soda, eating whole fruit rather than drinking juice, and so on. And nowadays, there is no short supply of activity trackers that can help you make those adjustments.

Luckily, many of these wrist-accessory gadgets track more than just steps taken and calories burned – they also track sleep patterns. The most popular activity device, Fitbit, has even worked with sleep experts to attain the most accurate data a device can gather. To better understand your sleep behavior through your own tracker, the following explanations can help give you the information that will help you make any necessary changes to improve your quality of shut-eye.