This Men’s Health Month, it’s important to focus on an area often overlooked when it comes to overall health: sleep. Sleep is one of the key components of a healthy lifestyle, but men often pass over it in favor of other activities. In fact, a new survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine finds that 75% of men say they have lost sleep after staying up “past their bedtime” to play video games, and 62% of men say they have lost sleep due to staying up to drink alcohol.

When we think about the most important actions that we can take to protect our health, we usually consider behaviors such as partaking in regular physical activity or eating a nutritious diet. Yet, an often-overlooked aspect of maintaining a healthy lifestyle is sleep. Sleep has serious implications for your physical and mental health. Adequate sleep will help you recover from exercise, enable your immune system to fight off pathogens and increase cognitive performance. In fact, to highlight its importance to health, the number of hours that people sleep is included as an indicator in the annual ACSM American Fitness Index (Fitness Index).