SLEEP
- What’s your sleep pattern been like this past week?
- How many hours did you get last night?
- Did you wake up feeling refreshed this morning?
Think, think, think ….
- Why do I inquire about these matters?
- How crucial is sleep for our overall health?
- What constitutes adequate quantity, quality, and duration of sleep?
These inquiries will be addressed in this and subsequent upcoming blogs. Keep reading.
SLEEP is indeed a crucial pillar of good health, alongside diet, exercise, and maintaining a positive attitude.
Why is sleep an essential component of good health, alongside diet, exercise, and maintaining a positive attitude?
While we’re outwardly at rest during sleep, internally, the body is actively engaged, optimizing functions to prepare us for the challenges of the following day.
During sleep, the body undergoes detoxification, scavenging for toxins accumulated from daily activities like breathing, circulation, digestion, and external exposure. Once gathered, it processes them for elimination, contributing to overall wellness.
Hormones are chemical messengers produced by glands in the body that regulate various physiological processes like growth, metabolism, mood, reproduction, and stress response by interacting with target cells or organs via the bloodstream. During sleep, the body re-synthesises and recycles hormones, ensuring they are readily available for their respective roles the next day.
Muscles and bones are essential components of the human body’s musculoskeletal system. During sleep the muscles and bone repair, rebuild and strengthen themselves after a day of physical activity. Important for maintaining optimal muscle mass and bone density.
Each cell of your body has a fixed lifespan, after which it dies and new cells are formed in its place. During the day as your body is busy supporting your daily activities, this important act of old cell death and new cell formation to sustain life happens during sleep. Keeping you young and energetic.
It’s aptly described that sleep acts as a beauty pill, providing rejuvenation at no cost.
How much sleep is enough? After decades of investigation, it appears that scientists have gathered enough evidence to begin to answer that question.
Healthy sleep requires adequate sleep duration, appropriate timing, regularity, the absence of sleep disorders, and good quality,
While individual sleep needs vary, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and Sleep Research Society (SRS) recommend that the average adult should sleep 7 or more hours per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health, the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) provides similar consensus recommendations of 7 to 9 hours of sleep for adults and 7 to 8 hours of sleep for older adults.
While it is well established that the effects of sleep loss accumulate over time, with repeated exposure to inadequate, fragmented, or disrupted sleep, the degree to which individuals demonstrate adverse effects of inadequate sleep can vary considerably.
“Reflect on this write-up about sleep and stay tuned for my next blog, where I will delve deeper into its role in preventing critical diseases.”
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6281147