When it comes to our health, both exercise and nutrition tend to get the bulk of the attention. But getting adequate sleep may be the most important key to improving your outdoor performance, increasing brain and body function, and perhaps even losing unwanted weight as we enter the season of holiday parties and shorter daylight.

In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to three gentlemen who studied how our internal clocks and circadian rhythms regulate vital functions such as behavior, hormone levels, body temperature, metabolism, and sleep. If you find yourself reaching for caffeine or sugar sometime during the day to stay awake and alert, your sleep habits may be responsible.

Why Is Sleep Important?

While you sleep, your body works hard to rebuild damaged tissues and replenish cells at the mitochondrial level. Matched closely with the sun’s light, your circadian rhythm (the body’s biochemical cycle that repeats roughly every 24 hours) governs hunger, body temperature, hormone release, and sleeping and waking patterns. That’s part of why it’s important to try to go to sleep at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning.

Without consistent sleep, you might experience brain fog, lack of energy, moodiness, munchies, and weight gain. Poor sleep can lead to an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, depression, and a compromised immune system. This means if you don’t sleep well, you might find yourself getting sick more often than your peers and co-workers, and you may take longer to recover.