Why Sleep Matters for Healing and Recovery
When you're recovering from an injury, it's easy to focus on treatment, exercise, stretching, nutrition or other rehabilitation strategies. But one of the most important parts of recovery is sleep!
This is one reason why Dr. Vincent Ng often talks to his patients about sleep. Sleep is not simply a time when the body shuts down. It is an active process during which the body regulates hormones, immune function, inflammation, and processes involved in tissue maintenance and recovery.
Sleep and tissue healing
During deep sleep, particularly slow-wave sleep, the body releases pulses of growth hormone (GH). Growth hormone plays an important role in growth, protein metabolism, tissue maintenance, and tissue remodeling. In other words, we need GH to recover from injury!
Research has shown that growth hormone secretion is closely linked to deep sleep, with one of the largest daily releases occurring shortly after falling asleep.
This doesn't mean that simply sleeping more will make an injury heal faster. Rather, good sleep is one of the basic conditions that helps your body function and recover normally.
Tips for better sleep
If you're trying to improve your recovery, start with the basics:
Aim for 6–8 hours of sleep per night. Individual sleep needs vary, but getting consistent, adequate sleep is important.
Keep your bedroom cool. A slightly cooler environment can make it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Keep the room dark and quiet. Minimize light and noise where possible. Blackout curtains, an eye mask, or earplugs can help if your environment is difficult to control.
Limit screen time before bed. Try to reduce your use of phones, tablets, computers, and TVs before going to sleep. Give yourself some time to wind down without screens. The stimulation and exposure to blue light affects the quality of sleep!
Keep a consistent sleep schedule. Going to bed and waking up around the same time each day can help establish a regular sleep rhythm. (Yes, even on weekends!)
Make your sleeping position comfortable. If you regularly wake up with neck or back pain, your pillow, mattress, or sleeping position may be worth evaluating.
Sleep is part of recovery
There is no single factor that determines how quickly an injury heals. Treatment, physical activity, rehabilitation, nutrition, stress, and sleep can all play a role.
That's why Dr. Vincent Ng considers sleep an important part of the bigger picture when working with patients.
You can do everything right during the day—but your body still needs time to recover at night.
Revised by Dr. Vincent Ng
September 2026
