Why Sleep Is Important, And What Happens When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep?

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Why Sleep Is Important, And What Happens When You Don't Get Enough Sleep?

Even after exercising daily and trying to eat the best you can, you still suffer from a lot of bodily complications? Well, the answer is simple: you may not be getting a good quality of sleep. By not sleeping well every day, you are undermining all the good efforts you are putting every day like exercising and eating healthy.

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Why Sleep Is Important, And What Happens When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep?

And this is not even surprising as sleep disorder experts themselves say that it is very crucial for our Health to get a good night’s sleep every day and that almost 50% of the public nowadays are lacking that. A proper amount of sleep is the prerequisite for good health.

Why Sleep Is Important, And What Happens When You Don't Get Enough Sleep?

How Much Sleep Do We Need?

You don’t need to lie down on the bed the whole day when we said: “you need a good amount of sleep”. You can actually target your sleep hours since it is different for different age groups. The National Sleep Foundations (NSF) says that every age group has different needs. And that can again change from individual to individual, but the most common range is:-

  • 65+ age – 7-8 hours
  • 26 to 64 – 7-9 hours
  • 18 to 24 – 7-9 hours
  • 14 to 17 – 8-10 hours
  • 06 to 13 – 9-11 hours
  • 03 to 05 – 11-14 hours
  • 01 to 02 – 11-14 hours
  • 04 to 11 months – 12-15 hours
  • Newborns – 14-17 hours

What will happen if you don’t get enough sleep?

Doctors urge us to sleep for a good reason. Shorting the time we shut our eyes can harm our health in many ways:-

Many short term complications include:-

  • Daytime sleepiness – you will feel drowsy the whole other day
  • Lack of alertness – low level of concentration in every work that you will do
  • Impaired memory – it will affect your ability to remember, think and process information
  • Reduced quality of life – You feel like participating in other social activities
  • Relationship stress – It will make you moody, and hence you will have more conflicts
  • Greater chance of vehicle accidents – you may sleep at the steering wheel

If you continue your habit of not sleeping well for a long time, then you may see some long term serious health problems. Some of the most serious complications connected to sleep deprivations are:-

  • Diabetes
  • Heart attack
  • Heart failure
  • High blood pressure
  • Obesity
  • Low sex drive
  • Stroke
  • Depression
  • Low immunity

These are just the health problems you may suffer. Chronic sleep deprivation will cause severe appearance changes. Over time, when you are not sleeping well, dark circles may appear under your eyes, and your skin may undergo premature wrinkling because sleeping less will secrete cortisol more than needed, which will break down collagen, the protein which keeps our skin smooth. There is also a link between increased level of stress hormone and lack of sleep. So, which means from your mind to physical state, everything will be highly affected if you don’t have a constant healthy sleep cycle.

Make your own time for the downtime

As quoted above, almost  50% of the world’s population right now suffers from sleep deprivation. They are putting their sleep aside for their social and workload pressure only to suffer later and affecting their first priority indirectly. So, it’s better to make our constant time for downtime since we can see that sleeping is essential for humans. You can use the following methods to make your bed the best place to be invited:-

  • Dim the lights once it reaches the early night
  • Lower the volume of everything in your house
  • Adjust the thermostat for your comfort
  • Reduce electronic distractions
  • Protect the bed from insects

It’s about time; we should understand the importance of sleep. Getting an adequate amount of sleep is very necessary for everyone. People need to understand that by not giving sleep their priority, they may indirectly affect the thing they are prioritizing the most. Well, in the end, its not just about the work. Your health gets severely affected by this, and we all know “health is wealth”.

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Dr. John Augustine received his BA from Harvard College magna cum laude in 1987 and his Ph.D. and MD degrees from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1992 and 1993. He was then an intern and resident in Internal Medicine at the Yale-New Haven Hospital from 1993-1995. From 1995-1998, John was a clinical associate at the National Cancer Institute. He joined the faculty of the Duke University Medical Center in 2008 as Chief of Rheumatology at the Durham VA Hospital, a position he held until the end of 2017. He served as Chief of Rheumatology and Immunology at Duke from 2003-2008. He has conducted basic and translational research in the field of autoimmunity. He was focusing on the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and the immunological properties of nuclear macromolecules, including DNA. More recently, he has investigated the immune activities of HMGB1, a nuclear protein with alarmin activity, as well as microparticles. These studies have provided new insights into the translocation of atomic molecules during cell activation and cell death and the mechanisms by which cell death can influence innate immunity.

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