Rise and Shine, beauty queens! You had a good night’s rest, right? A full 8 hours should leave you waking up refreshed and ready for the day.

Last week, TPF gave 5 Tips to balance your every day life when preparing for a pageant… One of them being to get your beauty sleep! A healthy sleep session is worth so much more a pretty face, although chronic bags under your eyes definitely isn’t pretty. Sleep is important to keep your mind clear and focused, especially when balancing a busy schedule. Here are four more reasons why you should be counting sleep.

• Focus: When you’re tired, your mind is boggled down with the day’s stressors and activities. Know when it is time to hit the hay, recharge your mind, and wake up feeling refreshed and ready to work on that project in a fresh light.
• Memory: Whether you are trying to connect presidential nominees with their main arguments, lock in your interview non-negotiables, or just differentiate similar current events- memory is important in pageant prep, and educational pursuits. Give your brain a rest, and you may be surprised at how much of the content you retained the next morning.
• Health: A consistent night’s rest is vital to staying healthy. When you’re sick, they tell you to rest, so why wouldn’t it work the other way? Sleep gives your immune system a boost and helps ward off sickness, before the first sneeze. Plus, your skin relies on sleep to recharge their collagen levels, and those dark circles could actually stick around long term without proper sleep. Not to mention, when you aren’t well rested there are chances that your appetite increases and your metabolism drops, making you more likely to eat when you’re not hungry and slows down your ability to break it down efficiently.
• Happiness: Show of hands, who gets grumpy when they’re tired? In the same way you get tired at the end of a late night, your mood will be off all day if you don’t get a good night’s rest before a busy day.

Set a reasonable “bedtime” and stick to it. Your mind and body will thank you for it!