Arianna Huffington Discusses the Importance of Sleep to Boost Immunity

Welcome to another edition of B-Well Together, a webinar series, highlighting tips, resources, and coping skills from leading wellbeing experts to support you and your families. Prior episodes featured renowned Buddhist meditation practitioner and author Jack Kornfield, award-winning comedian Trevor Noah, and pioneering psychiatrist Kim Norman.

Today, Thrive Global founder Arianna Huffington — who also founded the Huffington Post and authored “The Sleep Revolution” — discusses why sleep is crucial right now. “We need to make sure our bodies have the ability to fight off any viruses,” Huffington says. “Sleep is key to building up our immunity.”

In this video below, she offers a number of key tips to ensure you get enough sleep, which lands between seven and nine hours a night for most people. Some people, she adds, have a genetic mutation where they do not need that much, but those exist in a very small group. The rest of us have to release ourselves from outside forces like stress, work, and constant news and social media to allow us to get a good night’s sleep.

“You can’t make yourself go to sleep,” Huffington adds. “You have to surrender to sleep.”

She recommends not having your phone in your room, so you’re not tempted to look at it, especially if you wake up in the middle of the night. Also: soothe yourself with good books, meditation, and warm purifying baths or showers to help your body shift gears. For more tips like this, watch the video in full below.

The B-Well Together series is part of a larger Leading Through Change initiative, providing thought leadership, tips, and resources to help business leaders manage through crises. Check out some of our most recent articles:

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