Are You Tired Today? - Importance of Sleep

So how important is sleep anyways? If I can do all the tasks during a given day and meet all my requirements for school and work then I must be OK, right? Well, no actually.

The truth is that your sleep, good or bad, either enhances your health and performance or deteriorates it. Here's how.

The average person needs about 8 hours of sleep a night. By this I am referring to adults. Teens, infants and those who are recovering from illness or post-op may require more but this is the average.

When you ask most people how many hours of sleep they get in a night they will count starting with the hour they first enter the bedroom. They do not count the time spent brushing their teeth, reading, watching TV, talking to their spouse or anything else done before bed. As well, if they wake up during the night they forget to subtract this time from their total. Sure it's not a lot of time we're talking about here but it's obviously not time spent asleep and there provides an over-estimate of how much sleep we're getting.

So before we even correct for this over-estimation in the total amount of sleep we're getting the answers people give include the following:

'5 or 6 hours'

'7 hours, on a good night'

'Less than 6'

'Not sure'

The point is that most people don't get enough sleep.

Not here's where it gets interesting. When we are sleeping deprived some of our hormones are thrown out of whack. For example there is a hormone that serves as an appetite suppressant which is reduced when we are sleep deprived. As well, another hormone tells us when we are hungry. And guess what? When are sleep deprived this hormone is increased causing you to feel hungrier than you really are.

Unfortunately it doesn't end there. There are a number of other hormones that play a role in sleep, obesity and appetite.

Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety.

Why Do We Need Sleep?

Sleep is not a waste of time. Although researchers are not exactly sure why we need sleep, there are two basic theories:

Restorative - Sleep enables the body and mind to rejuvenate, re-energize, and restore. As a person sleeps, it is thought that the brain performs vital housekeeping tasks, such as organizing long-term memory, integrating new information, and repairing and renewing tissue, nerve cells and other biochemical. Sleep allows the body to rest and the mind to sort out past, present, and future activities and feelings.

Adaptive - Sleep may have evolved as a protective adaptation-finding food in the daytime and hiding at night is easier. Nearly every animal sleeps to some degree. Thus, it only makes sense that predators sleep more than animals that are prey. For humans, the amount and quality of sleep achieved is directly proportional to the amount and quality of the next day's productivity.

Why Sleep is important?

·         Keeps Our Heart Healthy

·         Reduce Stress

·         Reduce Chronic Inflammation

·         Makes us more Active

·         Boosts Memory

·         Can help us lose weight

·         Makes us smarter

·         Reduce risk of depression

·         Helps our body replenish

Here are three tips to improve the quantity and quality of your sleep:

• Go to bed earlier — and at a set time. Sounds obvious right? The problem is there's no alternative. You're already waking up at the latest possible time you think is acceptable. If you don't ritualize a specific bedtime, you'll end up finding ways to stay up later, just the way you do now.
• Start winding down at least 45 minutes before you turn out the light. You won't fall asleep if you're all wound up from answering email, or doing other work. Create a ritual around drinking a cup of herbal tea, or listening to music that helps you relax, or reading a dull book.
• Write down what's on your mind — especially unfinished to-do's and unresolved issues — just before you go to bed. If you leave items in your working memory, they'll make it harder to fall asleep, and you'll end up ruminating about them if you should wake up during the night.

Sleep is a significant health concern and just as important as nutrition, exercise and stress management.