When the issue of sleep is being mentioned in the society today, a lot of people tend affiliate sleep with laziness, they feel sleep is only for the lazy man. Many people don’t see sleep as a healthy practice but what if I told you today that sleep is necessary to have a good health.
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Hi there and welcome to my blog today. My name is Great Morgan and I am happy to have you here reading this post. Today we would be briefly looking at a very crucial health and wellness topic- Sleep. A lot of people feel that sleep is just for the lazy or just a natural occurrence that everyone must do at night time. At the end of this post, you will learn briefly an overview of what sleep is and how it affects our health. Do read attentively and enjoy the article.
WHAT IS SLEEP?
Can you try defining it for me? Well, funny enough, sleep might be quite difficult to define but too easy to practise haha.
Sleep can be seen the natural occurring, reversible, periodic and recurring state in which consciousness and muscular activity is temporarily suspended or temporarily diminished and responsiveness to outside stimuli is reduce. In a much simpler term, it is the condition of body and mind which typically recurs for several hours during the day or night, in which the nervous system is inactive, the muscles relaxed, eyes closed and the consciousness practically suspended.
Sleep has always been a large, familiar and important part of our lives. Just like exercise and good nutrition, sleep is also one of the pillars on which a healthy and happy life is based on. Even when we spend a third of our lives sleeping, there are still tons of important information about sleep that many people haven’t had access to.
For a while, people thought that sleep was just a time when the brain and body shuts down for a couple of hours each night to prepare for the next day. It has now been scientifically proven during sleep, our bodies or brain doesn’t necessarily shutdown. It has been researched that when while we sleep, our bodies and brains actually work harder than they do during the day. They undergo the process of processing information, restoring cells and improving health. As you can see, sleep is more than just closing the eyes.
THE CIRCADIAN RHYTHM
The human body follow a natural pattern for approximately 24 hours, this pattern I called the circadian rhythm. This rhythm is largely influenced by things in the environment such as lightness or darkness, as well as the genetic makeup of a person and determines your sleep pattern by releasing hormones when it’s time to sleep. Any abnormality in the circadian rhythm can lead to sleeping disorders like insomnia.
THE PURPOSE OF SLEEP AND ITS HEALTH BENEFITS
We can’t really pin-point any succinct reason why we need to sleep every night but based on certain research and monitoring the brains of sleeping humans, we know some reasons why sleep is vital and its function;
1. SLEEP OFFERS THE BODY A CHANCE TO RECOVER FROM WEAR AND TEAR: Research have proven and suggested the restorative effects of having a good sleep. This doesn’t necessarily means that the body rests or shuts down during sleep but rather, the cells are busy with regenerating themselves and the body temperature, heart rate and breathing drops in order to conserve energy.
2. SLEEP PLAYS A MAJOR ROLE IN IMMUNE FUNCTION: Our body produces special proteins called cytokines which helps our immune system to fight infections. More of these proteins are produced during sleep when you are sick, which is why we might feel so tired when we have a flow. During rest period, the body has enough time it needs to produce these infection-fighting proteins and to restore itself to wellness.
3. SLEEP FACILITATES LEARNING & MEMORY: It is not only in resting that we learn how to sustain the attention and concentration necessary to learn new tasks but sleep is also a time for the brain to consolidate memories which makes learning new things easier. It has been proven that when we sleep after learning a new skill. A recent study in Natural Neuroscience showed that people can learn new behaviours associated with unpleasant odours with certain sounds while they are completely asleep.
