In today’s busy scheduled life, every one leads a hectic lifestyle. There are so many things to be done everyday that we get very little time for ourselves. In between all the hustle and bustle you tend to miss out your daily minimum dose of sleep. Most people look out to cut their sleep time for more productive things. But have you ever thought “Are these things really more important than your sleep?” Good sleep is an ultimate need for human body. It is essential for sound mental and physical health. However if you neglect sleep, eventually you will pay price for it.
Stages of sleep:
There are five stages of sleep and you need to pass through each of them every night to feel best. When you start sleeping it is stage 1, then move on to stage 5 later on go back and forth between 2 and 5 repetitively all throughout the night. Stage 4 and 5 are the deepest sleep levels also referred as Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM). During this stage, humans dream the most and also the important processes in your body happen.
Persistent lack of sleep has undesirable effects on mental as well as physical health in a number of ways. You will start to gain weight, get more prone to insulin resistance and also the aging process gets paced up.
Weight gain:
Important activities taking place in your body while sleeping add to your health and healing. During REM sleep, the injured tissues of the body are repaired by the growth hormone production. These hormones encourage the protein production in the muscle along with fat breakdown. This controls the fat allocation in your body muscles. Regularly missing the deepest levels of sleep lowers the growth hormone amounts and increases fat accumulation. Lack of sleep also leads to lower leptin, which is a blood protein that regulates appetite.
Insulin resistance:
Lack of proper sleep for long intervals affects the use of carbohydrates and glucose in your body. Individuals who constantly miss out proper sleep have high blood sugar levels and it returns to normal state slowly. Also their body secretes less amounts of insulin. Research states that people with chronic sleep deficiency generally develop insulin resistance.
Sleep and aging
Improper sleep also contributes to premature aging. Sleep deficiency leads to low hormonal production in the brain, which happens mainly when the body gets old. Hence getting an adequate amount of sleep will assist in turning the clock back.
Quantity vs. quality
Both quality and quantity of sleep is important to human body. You must have enough time in each stages of sleep to feel fresh for the next day. Insufficient sleep can lead to lack of clear thinking, irritability and lethargy. Also it weakens your immune system and you become more susceptible to illness. The amount of sleep also varies for different people. Generally, adults need about eight hours of sleep every night while children need around 10 hours and infants need approximately 16 of sleep hours every night.
If you skip your sleep, this will have a serious risk on both your physical as well as mental health. If you have to cut back something on your schedule, ensure that it is not your sleep. Sufficient sound sleep make you feel better and rejuvenates your body for the next day.
