It may not be hard for professional basketball players to stay healthy when they’re training all the time, but they know that it’s more of a challenge for their fans. To help encourage families to lead active lives the NBA is promoting Live Health Week, which starts today and will end on January 12th.

To help communicate the cause, a NBA/WNBA Fit Team has been recruited to promote healthy living at events and programs around the country. The team is made up of players, coaches, officials, trainers and other health experts who reach out to kids and parents.

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As each day of the life of my two year-old daughter has gone by, I become more convinced that sleep is a number one, maybe number two mandate for leading a healthy and functional life. Anyone who has survived on just an hour or two of sleep quickly realizes why sleep is often used as a form of torture. Our need for sleep clearly diminishes with age: newborns need 16-20 hours of sleep per day while adults require about eight. Nonetheless, we all need it and for most of us, we could all benefit from more of it.

Easier said than accomplished, right? This weekend, or the next opportunity you have to sleep in, allow yourself the deserved pleasure of sleeping in until your body naturally awakens. Then assess your sense of wakefulness. If you feel like you could sleep more (and hopefully your household responsibilities allow you to), then sleep more. Your body probably needs it.

There are many roads that lead to the same destination of optimal health. But it can be boiled down to these basic elements of your lifestyle.