Extra sleep helps you tolerate pain

Getting more sleep at night improves daytime alertness and reduces pain sensitivity in healthy adults, reports the journal Sleep. A study of mildly sleepdeprived volunteers who spent four nights getting either their normal amount of sleep or extending their sleep time to 10 hours each night were able to keep their finger on a heat source 25% longer. This increase is greater than what was found in a previous study when participants took 60 milligrams of the painkiller codeine before undergoing the same pain sensitivity test.