We all know sleep is important, but have you ever thought why? Sleep has always been critical to function at your best.
During sleep, your bodily functions decrease and don’t have to work so hard -which is great for muscle repair. Your brain on the other hand is still working hard to reorganize pieces of memories and patching them back together in a logical manner.
There are a few simple things you can do to improve your sleep like investing in a quality mattress as experts advise in an article by Real Simple, or doing some light exercise like yoga before bed. We are looking at a few reasons why you should take your sleep seriously.
1. Sleep Can Affect Your Mental Health
You might feel more depressed if you sleep too much or if you don’t sleep regularly. This is because sleep deprivation affects certain parts of your brain. You will also notice that your mood swings will become highly uncontrollable the more sleep-deprived you become. This in turn will affect your relationships negatively creating a brutal cycle of continuous depression.
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2. Sleep Can Affect Your Physical Health
Your body will become zombie-like with sleep deprivation. Your hand-eye-coordination will slow down dramatically and you can become a danger for yourself and others. You will also get sick more often since your immune system never gets to go into energy-saving mode, it naturally just starts functioning slower which can lead to any kind of illness since the body doesn’t produce enough antibodies or white blood cells to fight back. Here are some possible illnesses you might be a higher risk of:
Heart Disease and Strokes:
These chronic diseases get driven by poor sleep. There has been a combination of 15 studies that prove this theory. An adult need at least 7-8 hours of good sleep to combat these diseases.
Diabetes Type 2
Your blood sugar will fall because your body never gets to rest. Insulin sensitivity is needed to help your body process glucose from sugar effectively. . Unfortunately, when you are sleep deprived your insulin sensitivity will be reduced -meaning your body will have a shortage of insulin. As soon as you get a normal sleep pattern your symptoms will lessen.
Increased Inflammation
Sleep deprivation will increase inflammation and cell damage. If you have IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome) it might be a side effect of a sleep disorder, since IBS occurs with inflammation to your digestive tract. This disease is unfortunately long-term. If you’re recovering from most diseases caused by inflammation -rest is very important to recover fully.
3. Sleep Can Affect Your Child’s Development
Children’s routine-sleep is extremely important as in the first years of life children are developing most of their skills that they will carry into adulthood. It’s very important for their growth. Concentration will be extremely difficult for children and they will struggle with memory problems without sufficient shut-eye. Their whole attitude towards learning will be negatively impacted if they can’t focus as well as the kids around them.
4. Sleep Can Affect Your Weight
A lack of sleep can affect your weight. Sleep deprivation affects your hormones, your motivation to be active, and can increase your appetite which can contribute to weight issues. You have to compensate for low energy – so your body screams for help by craving anything – especially high in sugar dishes.
To explain this phenomenon in scientific terms – your body will start to produce more ghrelin hormones which will, in turn, increase your appetite. And you’ll have lower levels of leptin – the hormone that resists your appetite. You can argue that a good night’s rest is pertinent to a healthy diet.
5. Sleep affects your concentration and productivity
Sleep affects your concentration and productivity. Good sleep is critical for certain brain functions. These functions include cognition, productivity, concentration and performance. All of these areas are negatively impacted when you don’t get enough rest.
Continued sleep deprivation and decreases in concentration and productivity can have terrible consequences at work or school as you will not be able to focus on the tasks at hand and won’t be able to deliver your usual quality of work.
Conclusion
There are many risk factors of not getting enough sleep such as weight gain and effects on your mental and physical health. The body uses sleep to restore all of our vital organs from your stomach to your brain. It’s time to prioritize your health. Get started by ensuring you get enough sleep.
