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3 Reasons ‘Sleep on It’ Is Actually Pretty Good Advice, According to Science

Sleep, morning cortisol, and daylight can all help your brain regulate stress and see last night’s problems with a little more perspective.

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After a long day or a stressful situation, you might hear the advice of “just sleep it off” or “you’ll feel better in the morning.” And while it might seem like an invalidating, oversimplified recommendation, it has some accuracy: often, our bodies and minds are better after a good night’s rest.

According to Josef Newton, founder of the health anxiety app Condri, this morning improvement comes from sleep repairing emotional regulation, the cortisol awakening response, and activating the circadian system.

“Analyzing problems at night means you are using brain power whilst your mental and physical resources are at their lowest. There are also few distractions, and your access to reassurance is limited,” he says. “When you ‘sleep on it,’ it doesn’t remove the crisis, but it does alter the way in which your brain is interpreting it.”

Newton breaks down the three science-backed reasons things always seem better in the morning.

1. Sleep Deprivation Activates........

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