By Joseph Rosario
It is vital to get the right amount of sleep each night. During your hours of sleep, your body is hard at work allowing you to feel well rested in the morning. Although experts say that most people should get eight hours of sleep every night, many people can feel rested after just a few hours of sleep, but why is that the case?
Most people have to sacrifice their sleep due to their busy schedules, and others might lose sleep because they want to stay up watching a show or playing video games. Getting 1-2 hours lower than the recommended amount of sleep can cause an individual to be less focused and have slower reflexes throughout the day. Additionally, loss of sleep impairs our higher levels of reasoning, problem-solving, and attention to detail. Lack of sleep influences our moods, and our interactions with other people, and over time lack of sleep can cause people to have a higher possibility of being diagnosed with depression.
Sleep doesn’t only affect our brains, but it affects every tissue in our body. The less sleep an individual gets increases the risk for obesity, infections, and heart diseases. Even when healthy people get lower than the recommended amount of sleep, they are at a higher risk of being in diabetic conditions. Sleep for adolescents and children causes the hormones that produce healthy growth. Sleep also increases muscle mass, repairs cells, and tissues, and regulates puberty and fertility. Additionally, your immune system works better when getting at least 8 hours of sleep you are more likely to fight off viruses, but when consistently getting lower than the recommended amount of sleep could potentially lead to low-level inflammation throughout the body leading to certain chronic medical conditions.
What can people do to benefit the most from their sleep?
To have healthy sleep each night it’s crucial to have a sleep schedule where you go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. Additionally, having a healthy diet and having your bedroom between the temperatures of 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit will increase your sleep quality. Finally, it’s essential to avoid naps, and never take naps for more than 20 minutes.
We all have a lot of activities to accomplish throughout our days and it may be hard to get quality sleep. It’s vital to get good sleep each night to benefit your body and lower your risk for serious medical diseases.
Works Cited
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “How Sleep Works – Why Is Sleep Important? | NHLBI, NIH.” Www.nhlbi.nih.gov, 24 Mar. 2022, www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep/why-sleep-important.
- “Physical Health and Sleep: How Are They Connected?” Sleep Foundation, 27 Oct. 2020, www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-health#:~:text=A%20lack%20of%20high%2Dquality.
- “The Benefits of Slumber.” NIH News in Health, 31 May 2017, newsinhealth.nih.gov/2013/04/benefits-slumber#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSleep%20affects%20almost%20every%20tissue.
