Throughout your life, sleep plays an important role in health and wellbeing. Getting sufficient,high quality sleep as well as getting it at the right times, protects your physical, emotional, intellectual health as well as your general safety.
When you are awake, the way you feel during this time, in part, depends on the amount and the quality of sleep you have had the previous night. During sleep, any emotional issues that needed to be dealt with during the day are reflected upon while we sleep, making it easier for you to ponder over next day. Hence the say ‘Sleep on it’.
Sleep time is when the body heals itself. Your body is working hard during this time to support emotional and physical wellbeing. During childhood and adolescents, growth and development happens when we sleep.
Ongoing sleep deficiencies can have long term health effects. It is during sleep that your physical health is recharged. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation can attribute to many health related issues. For example, sleep deprivation over time can contribute to being overweight. This is partly due to the fact that during sleep, healthy balances of your hormones that are related to satiety are maintained. When there has been not enough sleep, the level of gherlin (the hormone that makes you feel hungry) increases and the level of leptin (the hormone that makes you feel full) decreases. You therefore will feel hungrier when you have not had enough sleep.
Studies have also shown that sleep deficiency can also increase the risk of kidney disease, heart disease, high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome. When you are asleep the healing and repairing of heart and blood vessels takes place. When there is not enough sleep, making it harder for restoration to place, these vessels may be more vulnerable to damage.
Your immune system also heavily relies on the amount of sleep you have had in order to function effenctively. The more sleep you have had, the more chance you will have fighting off infections. Sleep deprivation alters the way in which the immune system functions making you more susceptible to chronic colds, flues and infections.
It is important to contact your doctor, nutritionist or naturopath if you feel you are suffering from sleep deprivation. There are many reasons why your quality of sleep may be lacking.
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