Importance of Sleep and How to Get Better Rest with Dr. Roban

In this blog, we've transcribed the insightful webinar that sleep expert, Dr. Whitney Roban hosted for the Rest community. Edits made for readability.

Dr. Whitney Roban is a clinical psychologist, specifically trained in cognitive behavioral therapy, and a leading voice in sleep wellness. Her insights have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and more.

TL;DR (Summary)

Sleep is not a luxury—it’s a biological necessity, as vital as food and oxygen. Despite a growing sleep deprivation epidemic, most of us still don’t treat sleep as a top priority. Rest’s mission, and Dr. Whitney Roban’s life work, is to change that.

Why Sleep Matters

• Sleep is one of the three core pillars of health, alongside diet and exercise.
• Impacts everything from mental focus, mood, physical health, productivity, immunity, memory, weight regulation, and stress.
• Adults need 7–9 hours of sleep. Only 1% of people are “short sleepers” who can thrive on less.
• You can’t really “catch up” on sleep—sleep debt accumulates and creates issues like "social jet lag."

Impact of Poor Sleep

• Physically: Increases risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.
• Emotionally: Worsens anxiety, depression, and emotional regulation.
• Behaviorally: Affects focus, decision-making, memory, and productivity.
• At work: Sleep loss costs the U.S. economy $411 billion/year, and the average worker loses $2,280/year in productivity.

What Happens While We Sleep

• Hormones like leptin, ghrelin, cortisol, growth hormone, and sex hormones are regulated.
• Memory consolidation, immune support, and muscle repair happen during deep sleep and REM.
• Deep sleep delivers the “Four R’s”: Rest, Repair, Recovery, Rejuvenation.

How to Sleep Better

• Create and stick to a routine by developing a nightly wind-down ritual (e.g., journaling, warm bath, lavender spray, deep breathing).
• Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends.
• Create a sleep-friendly environment that’s dark, quiet and cool (60–68°F).
• Use cooling bedding like Rest’s Evercool products for better temperature regulation.

Do’s and don’ts of habits:

• Throughout the day, get sunlight, move your body, and stay hydrated.
• Avoid caffeine after lunch while cutting heavy meals, alcohol, and cannabis in the evenings as they can interfere with REM sleep and circadian rhythm.
• Ditch your devices before bed as blue light suppresses melatonin and the dopamine hit keeps your brain overstimulated.
• If you nap, do so before 3 PM and keep it under 30 minutes.

Common Sleep Myths Debunked

• Melatonin isn’t a magic fix—it’s a hormone, not FDA-regulated, and often inaccurately dosed.
• Cannabis and alcohol may help you fall asleep but ruin REM sleep.
• Sleep needs don’t decrease with age—they just shift earlier.

Sleep is not just a want; it’s a need.

Why is Sleep so Important?

Sleep is a basic biological need. We all need to do three things to survive: eat, breathe, and sleep. No one can live without all three.

Sleep is one of the three pillars of health, alongside diet and exercise. In fact, I consider sleep the foundation of wellness because it impacts everything we do in a 24-hour day.

Now, some of you might still think, “Oh, I can get by on four hours of sleep—no problem.” But the truth is, only about 1% of the population are genetically classified as short sleepers. That means 99% of us need the recommended amount of sleep.

So if you want to argue that sleep isn’t that important, think about this: we try to eat healthy every day, even if we don’t always succeed. It’s the same with sleep. We may not sleep perfectly every night—even I don’t. But we should try every day to get healthy sleep and have a plan for it.

Is Sleep a Priority in Your Life?

There’s something I teach called a “priority hierarchy.” It’s a list of all the things in your life that are most important to you and your family. And sleep should be on that list. In fact, it should be at the top of that list.

Over the past 20 years of conducting sleep workshops, I’ve consistently heard the same top five priorities from people:

1. Physical and emotional health

2. Success at home, work, or school

3. Eating healthy

4. Staying physically active

5. Managing daily stress

And these are all great goals. But here’s the thing—if sleep isn’t a priority, every one of those goals becomes harder to achieve.

Getting a good night’s sleep must be on your priority list. Why?

Because sleep affects everything we do—head to toe, from morning until night. Want to be emotionally resilient? You need sleep. Want to be productive at work or attentive with your kids? You need sleep. Want to maintain a healthy weight or manage your stress? Sleep plays a key role in all of it.

So if sleep is already on your list of priorities, I challenge you to move it higher. If it’s not there at all, now’s the time to add it.

Let’s talk about how you feel during the day. Be honest with yourself:

• Do you wake up feeling tired every day?
• Do you feel distracted, frustrated, or unable to focus?
• Do you have a low frustration tolerance, or notice you're more forgetful than usual?
• Do you misplace things, feel unmotivated, or have trouble getting out of bed?
• Are you sluggish or cranky throughout the day?

If you said “yes” to even a few of these on a regular basis, there’s a very good chance that sleep deprivation is playing a role.

Here’s a question I get all the time—probably the number one question:

How Much Sleep Do We Actually Need?

Let me turn that around: How much sleep are you getting right now?

When I ask this in live sessions, I see a lot of hands go up in the 5–6 hour range. A few people admit to getting less than 5. Very few say they get 7–9 hours consistently.

But the truth is: adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. The average is about 8.

Now, people say to me, “But Dr. Roban, that’s a big range! How do I know what I personally need?”

Here’s what I recommend:
Find a week when you don’t have to set an alarm—maybe during a vacation. Go to sleep at the same time each night and allow your body to wake up naturally. After a few days, take note of how many hours you're sleeping. That’s your optimal amount.

I did this myself years ago. I discovered I’m an 8-hour sleeper. Seven hours? I can manage, but I don’t feel great. Nine hours? Amazing. Less than seven? Not ideal.

And remember: 99% of people fall somewhere in that 7–9 hour range. So find your sweet spot.

Sleep Deprivation in the Workplace

The reason I include sleep deprivation in the workplace in my presentation—not just because we’re doing this webinar with a wonderful company like Rest—is because these statistics simply don’t get talked about enough.

Let’s start here: 50% of workers report getting less than seven hours of sleep per night. That means half of the workforce is sleeping less than the required amount to function well. And when we start talking in dollars and cents, the numbers are staggering.

$411 billion—that’s the annual cost of sleep deprivation to the U.S. economy.

Yes, sleep loss affects productivity. But it also affects a company’s bottom line in terms of healthcare costs, lost work hours, and safety. In fact, an estimated 10 million working hours are lost every year due to sleep-related absences. And the average cost per worker in lost productivity? $2,280 annually.

That’s the impact of chronic sleep deprivation.

But here’s a statistic I love sharing—probably my favorite:
If workers increase their sleep by just one hour, their earning potential could increase by 45%. And that improvement in sleep could boost the overall economy by $224 billion.

That’s how powerful sleep can be—not just on a personal level, but on an economic scale as well.

Now let’s look at the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Why does it impact us so deeply? Why does it cost so much?

Because sleep deprivation affects every aspect of our health—physical, emotional, and behavioral.

Impact of Sleep on Physical Health

When you’re sleep-deprived, your immune system is compromised. While you sleep, your body works hard to flush out toxins and strengthen immunity. Without that, you become more vulnerable—not just to the common cold, but to more serious, long-term illnesses.

Another big issue: unhealthy weight gain. There are two reasons for this:

1. When you’re tired, you seek out external sources of energy—usually foods that are high in fat and sugar.
2. Sleep regulates our hunger hormones. During healthy sleep, our body produces leptin, the hormone that tells us we’re full. But when we’re sleep-deprived, leptin production decreases, and we get more of a hormone called ghrelin, which tells us to keep eating. That combination leads to overeating and weight gain.

And if that weren’t enough, long-term sleep deprivation increases the risk of serious conditions like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer.

Impact of Sleep on Emotional Health

As a clinical psychologist, this is a critical area I focus on. If someone already struggles with clinical anxiety or depression, poor sleep will only make it worse. But even for those without diagnosed mental health issues—there’s no one who wakes up after a bad night of sleep and says, “Wow, I feel great!”

Sleep is when your hormones are balanced. Without it, you’re more likely to feel anxious, down, irritable, or emotionally dysregulated.

Impact of Sleep on Behavioral Health

Every behavior we need to function—whether it’s at home, at work, or in school—is impacted by sleep. That includes:

• Memory (especially memory consolidation)
• Organization and focus
• Judgment
• Problem-solving
• Productivity

I often bring up teenagers here—they’re notorious for having poor sleep habits and poor judgment. And guess what? The two go hand in hand.

So, when you look at this full picture, there’s truly nothing in our daily lives that isn’t touched—either negatively by sleep deprivation, or positively by quality rest.

What Happens While We Sleep?

So much happens while we sleep—honestly, more than most people realize. In fact, more happens in your brain and body during sleep than while you're awake.

Let’s start with memory:
Everything you learn during the day gets stored in short-term memory. During sleep—specifically, during deep and REM sleep—that information is consolidated into long-term memory.

Your immune system? Strengthened during sleep.

Your hormones? Regulated during sleep.

I already mentioned leptin and ghrelin—those hunger hormones—but we also see regulation of the growth hormone (kids literally grow while they sleep), sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, and the stress hormone, cortisol.

And cortisol is a big one. Most of us are trying to reduce stress in our lives. Sleep is how we do that. It keeps cortisol in check.

There’s also muscle repair, cell regeneration, and energy restoration—all of which happen primarily during deep sleep.

I call this the “Four R’s” of deep sleep:

• Rest
• Repair
• Recovery
• Rejuvenation

So if you’ve ever wondered whether sleep is really that important, just think about everything your body and brain accomplish while you’re asleep. It’s incredible.

The sex hormones—estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone—are all regulated during sleep. So is the stress hormone, cortisol. And most of us agree: we’re all just trying to keep our stress levels down. Life is stressful. We want to do what we can to lower cortisol, and that regulation happens while we sleep.

Muscle and cell repair, growth, and recovery also happen during deep sleep, as does energy restoration—that feeling of being truly well-rested the next day. During deep sleep, I refer to the “Four R’s” that take place: rest, repair, recovery, and rejuvenation.

Deep sleep occurs before REM sleep and is one of the most important sleep stages. These Four R’s—rest, repair, recovery, and rejuvenation—are all happening during that time.

Now that we've gone through the “why,” and I hope I’ve convinced you that sleep is what I call the single most important behavior you’ll engage in on a daily basis, let’s talk about the “how.”

How Do We Actually Get Better Sleep?

Let’s start with your morning routine.

Everyone always focuses on the nighttime routine—and don’t get me wrong, that’s very important—but your sleep-wake cycle, or circadian rhythm, spans a full 24 hours. That means what you do in the morning impacts how well you’ll sleep at night. Sleep-promoting behavior doesn’t just start when you’re brushing your teeth before bed—it starts the moment you open your eyes in the morning.

What Should Your Morning Look Like?

• Get out of bed.
• Drink a tall glass of water.
• Get sunlight—this resets your circadian rhythm.
• Get some fresh air.
• Try deep breathing, a morning mantra, or meditation to start the day with intention.
• Do some light movement—whether it’s an intense workout, a walk, or a yoga class, just get your body moving.

Hungry Before Bedtime or Eating Before Bed?

Try to avoid eating before bed. That said, especially for teenagers who are growing or athletes training late, you should never go to bed hungry. If you do need a snack, opt for sleep-promoting foods like:

• Bananas
• Oatmeal
• Whole grain crackers and cheese
• Turkey
• Avocado

As for drinks:

• Milk (yes, your mom was right!)
• Chamomile tea
• Tart cherry juice

You should also avoid strenuous exercise too close to bedtime. Moderate movement is okay for some people—like stretching or going on a short walk in the evening—but intense workouts late at night can disrupt your sleep.

Impact of Caffeine, Alcohol and Cannabis on Sleep

Yes, I know—I’ve earned the title of “sleep buzzkill,” because everything people tend to enjoy in the evening, I’m about to suggest you cut back on. But it’s all for a good reason, and it starts with understanding how these substances actually impact your sleep.

Caffeine has a much longer half-life than most people realize. For many of us, it can stay active in the body for six to seven hours. That means your afternoon coffee or energy drink could still be affecting your system well into the evening. A good rule of thumb? Cut off caffeine after lunch to prevent it from interfering with your ability to fall asleep at night.

Alcohol is another common sleep disruptor. While it’s a depressant and might help you fall asleep more quickly, it doesn’t help you stay asleep. After about five to six hours, as your body metabolizes the alcohol, you’ll experience a rebound effect—this is when people often wake up in the middle of the night and struggle to fall back asleep. Even if you remain asleep, alcohol disrupts your REM sleep, the stage that’s essential for emotional processing, memory consolidation, and overall restoration. So when people say, “I slept great until 2 a.m., and then I was wide awake,” that’s typically the alcohol wearing off and interfering with the second half of the sleep cycle.

The effects of cannabis are similar. While it can help you feel relaxed and may even make it easier to fall asleep initially, research shows that it also disrupts REM sleep. Even more concerning, studies have found that regular, long-term cannabis users report worse overall sleep quality compared to occasional users. And because the body builds tolerance over time, people often end up needing more to get the same effect—leading to a cycle that can negatively impact both sleep and overall health.

Impact of Devices Before Sleeping

The same goes for electronics. Everyone knows the advice, but almost nobody follows it. It’s not just about the blue light, although that’s part of it—it tells your brain it’s daytime and suppresses melatonin. But even more important than the blue light is the dopamine hit your brain gets from scrolling. Likes, videos, TikToks, Instagram stories—it keeps you stimulated, and suddenly you’ve gone down a rabbit hole and it’s 90 minutes later.

So, shut off your screens an hour before bed. Just put them away. Your sleep will thank you.

Are Naps Good or Bad?

Now, on to naps—a question I get all the time. People ask, “Are you pro-nap?” And yes, I am—with rules.

If you’re going to nap, finish it before 3:00 p.m., and keep it to 30 minutes or less. I’ll talk more about why that’s important later, but generally speaking, if you're well-rested, you probably won’t feel the need to nap. If you are completely wiped out and have something important later, a quick, strategic nap can help—but don’t overdo it.

Creating a Better Bedroom and Sleep Environment

This is what I call your sleep sanctuary. You want it to be:

• Dark: Use blackout shades or a sleep mask. (Rest makes a great one, by the way.)
• Quiet: Use a white noise machine, a white noise app, or even earplugs if needed.
• Cool: Set your thermostat between 60 and 68°F.

I know people react strongly to this one—"That’s so cold!”—but I promise you, I’ve told thousands of people to do this, and they always come back and say they sleep better.

Personally, I keep my house at 72°F during the day, but at night I lower it to 64°F. And I sleep great.

If you can’t adjust your thermostat, use a fan or try cooling bedding. I sleep with Rest’s cooling comforter and sheets every single night. They are not only luxuriously soft, but literally cool to the touch. I won’t sleep without them.

Bedtime Routines for Adults

Creating a sleep routine is also incredibly important. A lot of people think routines are just for kids—but adults benefit just as much. It’s all about signaling to your body and brain that it’s time to wind down.

When you do the same calming activities every night, your body starts to respond automatically—like Pavlov’s dogs. I always share a story about my son, who’s now 20, but when he was little, he’d be running around the house full of energy. You’d never guess he was tired. But I knew as a sleep expert he needed rest. So I’d take him into his room, lower the lights, close the blinds, and start his bedtime routine—and he’d start yawning instantly. That’s the power of routine.

People ask me all the time: “What’s your bedtime routine?”

Here it is:

• I take a hot bath or shower. It relaxes me, and it helps my body temperature drop afterward, which increases melatonin production.
• I journal my to-do list for the next day. I’m someone who loves sticky notes and reminders—writing it all out clears my mind.
• I spray some lavender in the bedroom.
• I do gentle yoga stretches and deep breathing.
• Then I get into bed and go to sleep.

It’s simple. But I do it every single night.

Importance of a Consistent Sleep Schedule

Creating a consistent sleep schedule is just as important as your routine. You want to have:

1. A set bedtime
2. A set wake-up time

And believe it or not, the more important of the two is your wake-up time.

Consistency in your circadian rhythm is key. Sleeping in significantly on weekends can throw it all off. This is called social jet lag—that groggy, foggy feeling on Monday morning is a result of an inconsistent sleep schedule.

Once you determine if you’re a 7, 8, or 9-hour sleeper (which we talked about earlier), you can work backwards from your wake-up time to determine your ideal bedtime. That becomes your sleep goal.

Will life sometimes get in the way? Of course. Kids, deadlines, events—it happens. But as often as you can, aim for that consistent sleep and wake time. It will pay off in better rest and better health.

Sleep schedules are incredibly important. You need to have a set bedtime. People always laugh when I say that—even my kids used to tease me: “You’re the only mom with a bedtime!” But I do have one. I have a bedtime goal, and I also set a consistent wake-up time.

One question I’ve been asked over the years is: What’s more important—when you go to sleep or when you wake up? Believe it or not, the most important thing is when you wake up. You want to wake up at the same time every day.

Sleeping in too much on weekends can disrupt your circadian rhythm—your 24-hour sleep-wake cycle. So how do you figure out your ideal bedtime and wake time? As I mentioned earlier, once you determine if you’re a 7-, 8-, or 9-hour sleeper, you’ll know what time you need to wake up. Then work backward to set your bedtime. That becomes your sleep goal each night.

Of course, life happens—kids might keep you up, you might have a deadline, or a party, or something else that gets in the way. That’s okay. Just aim for consistency as often as possible. A regular bedtime and wake-up time are the foundation of healthy sleep.

Let’s move into debunking common sleep myths, which I think is such an important topic. There are so many widespread misunderstandings about sleep.

Should I Use Melatonin?

Melatonin is probably worthy of an entire webinar by itself. It’s important to understand that melatonin is not FDA-regulated. You can walk into a pharmacy and buy it over the counter, but that doesn’t mean it’s a harmless supplement. It’s actually a hormone. So, if you’re giving melatonin to your kids, keep in mind—you’re giving them a hormone.

Recent studies have shown that melatonin content in supplements can be wildly inconsistent. Some bottles have zero melatonin. Others can have up to 400% more than what’s listed on the label. That’s a huge problem.

And many melatonin products contain 5, 10, even 20 milligrams—which is way more than needed and can lead to side effects like:

• Morning grogginess
• Stomach aches
• Increased anxiety
• Vivid dreams or even nightmares

The research also shows that melatonin only shortens sleep latency—the time it takes to fall asleep—by just 4 to 6 minutes. So, it’s not really an effective sleep aid for most people.

So when is melatonin appropriate?

It was originally developed for night shift workers and jet lag. So I might recommend it short-term in those specific situations. And even then, only at very low doses—0.5 mg to 1 mg. Always consult your doctor before using melatonin, especially if you’re taking other medications.

Sleep Debt: Can You Catch Up On Sleep?

This one comes up a lot. If you’re not chronically sleep-deprived, and you miss an hour or two, it’s okay to try to catch up a little. But let’s walk through an example.

Say you’re an 8-hour sleeper, but from Monday to Friday, you only get 7 hours per night. That’s an hour of sleep debt per night. By the weekend, you’ve built up a 5-hour deficit. You’re not going to make that up by sleeping in for two extra hours on Saturday and Sunday. And even if you try, you could end up creating social jet lag.

Social jet lag is what happens when you drastically shift your sleep and wake times on the weekend. Come Monday, your body feels like it’s in a different time zone. You feel groggy, foggy, and off your rhythm.

So the takeaway: sleep debt is hard to recover from, and trying to do so by sleeping in on weekends usually backfires.

Do You Need Less Sleep as You Age?

There’s a common belief that the older we get, the less sleep we need. That’s actually not true. What changes is when we want to sleep, not how much we need.

As we age, our circadian rhythm tends to shift earlier. That’s why older adults often go to bed and wake up earlier. But the total amount of sleep needed—usually 7 to 9 hours—stays the same.

Is Sleep a Want or a Need?

As a cognitive psychologist, I always encourage cognitive reframing. So let’s reframe this: Sleep is not just something we want. It’s something we need, just like food and air.

From day one, I said it: we all need to eat, sleep, and breathe. Those are the three fundamental pillars of life. So yes, it’s something we want, but more importantly—it’s something we require to function, physically and mentally.

And here’s the good news: It’s never too late to get better at sleep.

We sleep every day for the rest of our lives, which means we always have opportunities to improve. Whether you’re 18 or 80, it’s always worth making the effort to create better sleep habits.

Top Healthy Bedtime Habits to Start Tonight

Let me wrap this part up by sharing my top healthy bedtime habits. Many of these we’ve already covered, but here’s a quick rundown:

• Start your routine one hour before bed. Set an alarm as a cue. Dim the lights, play relaxing music, and put your phone away.
• Avoid eating heavy, spicy meals. If you need a snack, choose sleep-promoting foods.
• Create a healthy sleep environment. It should be dark, quiet, and cool.
• Follow a consistent, relaxing bedtime routine. Whatever calms you—make it your ritual.
• No technology. Turn it off and, ideally, charge it outside the bedroom.
• Sleep independently. Try not to rely on alcohol, cannabis, or any other substances unless medically necessary.
• Go to bed early enough to get your full 7–9 hours.
• Stick to a consistent sleep schedule. Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.

These habits may take time to establish, but they work. Once your new habits become part of your lifestyle, they won’t feel like effort anymore—and you’ll start seeing real improvements in your sleep.

And remember: everyone can improve their sleep.

Sure, if you have a medical condition or are on medication, daily habits might not fix everything—but they can still help. And for the rest of us, we all have room to become better sleepers.

Some of us might become good sleepers. Others can become great sleepers. But no matter where you’re starting from, it’s never too late.

The first step? Accept and prioritize the importance of sleep. Once you do that, the positive effects will carry through for the rest of your life.

Stay tuned for the Q&A session, where Dr. Whitney Roban answers our webinar attendee's questions.

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