Getting More Sleep

This is national Sleep Awareness Week, so here's a great way to get a bit more shuteye.

It's a great time to remember just how much sleep we need and how little we actually get.

We need between 7-9 hours of sleep each night. But plenty of us don't get that much. The problem is not enough sleep, especially over time, can take its toll on our health. This can lead to all sorts of medical problems and can even contribute to an earlier death.

Getting to sleep isn't always easy, but now a new study is showing that one method works really well at getting you to nod off. Exercise. According to the 2013 Sleep In America poll, exercise is a great way to help you get more sleep. For people who were heavy, moderate or even light exercisers ended up getting more sleep. As a matter of fact, even just walking for 10 minutes improved how good that night's sleep was.

And although there's a myth that exercising right before sleep can interfere with sleep, experts say that's simply not true. People who exercise before bedtime report sleeping as well as those who exercise earlier in the day.

So, the bottom line here is to get in a bit of exercise during the day to get better sleep at night. It's the perfect sleeping pill and comes with other benefits as well... better overall health to boot.