Deep sleep is very important yet quite delicious to your health and your body just like food, water and air. We need sleep as essential thing and we can’t skip the sleeping process during night or we can get sick. Sleep is a body requirement and it is a must. Without sleep, body cant regulate the organ system, nerve, hormones and other body function. Nowadays people used to sacrifice sleep due to work and other task such as school task for teenager. Sleep is also important in for processing, metabolizing, and integrating emotion and interfere within the learning process from your day.
It has been proven that people who experience lack of sleep used to suffer mental disorder and lost focus as well as memory. Usually people who lack of sleeping will take sleeping pills to overcome this problem but its not really a solution. Sleeping pills can cause drowsiness, addiction, lost focus and effectiveness, memory problems, also prevent you from getting enough deep sleep. When you get enough deep sleep deep, your body will be refresh and the stamina will be restored. You will feel fresh in the morning and it make you ready to face the day.
What is Deep Sleep?
Deep sleep is one of the stage in sleeping process. The sleeping pattern itself is controlled by Cycardian rhythm or biological clock and regulated by the brain through some processes in the brain that signaling the time when you should rest and when the time change from light to dark. Deep sleep is a time when the body repairs itself and restore the energy for the day ahead. It also plays important role that can maintain your body health, stimulating growth, boosting immune system, and repairing damage muscles and tissue.
When the night comes your body will responds to the loss of light and the body will start producing melatonin, a hormone which make you feel sleepy. The light is a inhibitor that can prevent the body to produce melatonin. This is why we hardly to get sleep at day time. There are four main stage of sleep that must be completed during sleeping time, they are
- Stage 1 is stage of NREM sleep. Just after we fall asleep we enter non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. that divided into three stages, NREM1, NREM2 and NREM3
- Stages 2 that belong to light stages of sleep. In this stage of sleep your body easily aroused or wake up due to noise or other disturbance.
- Stage 3, this is the deep stage of sleep that we will be more difficult to awaken and some may feel disorientated and dizzy if you awaken in this stage of sleep
- Stage 4 which is known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage . in this stage of sleep we will experience dream and if we awaken in this stage you will be weak and feeling drowsy.
Each cycle of the sleeping phase will lasts around 1½ hours and those stages must be completed during sleep in order to get enough sleep including deep sleep.
What bother deep sleep?
This deep sleep can be bothered by several factors such as night shift work, irregular sleeping pattern and behavior, or even traveling across different time zones. These factors will make you lack of deep sleep and will leaving you feeling a disoriented, sleepy and unconscious feeling due to they can decrease melatonin level and it will make you have sleep debt.
Health benefits of Deep Sleep
Deep sleep is important stage of sleep that you should experience every time you get sleep. Here are the benefits of deep sleep that may you didn’t know
1. Maintain healthy heart
Health Benefits of Deep Sleep is best for keep heart healthy. If you want to keep your heart healthy you should take good deep sleep. During deep sleep the heart will beat slower and give the heart chance to repair itself.
2. Lowering blood pressure
Lack of deep sleep can trigger adrenaline or cortisole production which increase blood pressure. When you get deep sleep you allow your body to rest and give chance to the heart to beat slower and lowering blood pressure.
3. Boost immune system
Deep sleep is a body process to maintain every organ and cell health. During deep sleep stage your body produce immune cell and antibody that may help in fighting and preventing disease.
4. Maintain healthy brain
Deep sleep is a stage before the body entering REM or rapid eye movement stage where the body will start dreaming. On the deep sleep stage, brain will repair it cell and the body will produce hormone and other neurotransmitter that can promote new brain cell production. This will make your brain fully repaired and prevent you from any mental disorder.
5. Improve memory and creativity
According to study, deep sleep can induce your memory and improve creativity. Those who get enough deep sleep show better memory and learning performance including creativity in the work space or in classroom. Many expert have proven that after deep sleep stage the brain begin to enter REM stage when people start dreaming. Without deep sleep you will not enter later stage.
6. Prevent alzheimer
By maintaining healthy brain function, deep sleep can significantly effect in preventing memory lost. Alzheimer is a disease which the brain lost it function in memory. During deep sleep, brain will restore and repair the damage within itself.
7. Promote healthy weight
Lack of deep sleep will make you easier to gain weight and craving for more food. According to study, deep sleep can stabilize and repair all damage inside the body including the change in hormone. Deep sleep can improve the regulation of ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is hunger promoting hormone while leptine stimulate satiety. Without good sleep, body will lost its control in regulating both hormones and promote weight gain.
8. Prevent obesity
Deep sleep can prevent mutation which happen in the body including the mutation of several gens in the body that causing obesity as well as promoting the change in the ghrelin and leptin hormones. Deep sleep will induce cell reparation and this will help in preventing metabolic disorder that comes along obesity
9. Improve digestion
Actually, eating before sleep is really must be avoided because it can interrupt the body process in repairing any damage in the digestion tracts and glands. Rather than focusing in repairing digestion tract, the body will still digest the food that you consume before sleep. The repairing process of digestion tract happen during deep sleep phage. This is why deep sleep can improve digestion function.
10. Repair body cell
This one is maybe one of the main benefits of sleep. In the deep sleep stage, the protein inside the body will work to repair any damage which caused by free radical, microorganism or other factors such as harmful toxin and substance. Having good deep sleep every night will help you recover the wound faster.
12. Restore energy
Deep sleep is a stage where the body start to restoring energy. During sleep the body still produce energy from metabolism and this energy will be kept for the next day when you wake up in the morning.
13. Alleviate stress and depression
Deep sleep can alleviate your stress and depression since it can calm the nerve and the heart will beat slower. Deep sleep has soothing effect to the body but lack of deep sleep also will causing stress and depression. Study have proven that stress, and deep sleep affecting each other.
14. Promote good mood
If you get enough deep sleep you will fell so fresh and good when you wake up. It is surely a good start for your day. In opposite, people who don’t experience deep sleep will easily get angry and emotional. They are hardly to control emotion since they got drowsy and sleepy feeling. Study show that people who get lack of sleep tend to have behavior and mental disorder including depression.
15. Promoting body growth in kids and teenagers
Sleep including the deep sleep stage is important in the growing phase of children and teenagers. During deep sleep, body produce growth hormone that triggers the releasing of growth hormone that contributes to children growth. It also boosts muscle mass, learning memory and the repair the damge in the cells and tissues. Deep sleep also effect on the release of sex hormones that can promote puberty and fertility in teenagers.
16. Prevent diabetes
Diabetes can be caused by many factors. People who get lack of sleep tend to suffer metabolic diorder such as obesity and later it can cause the development of diabetes. Getting enough good deep sleep can increase insulin sensitivity and help the body to lower the blood sugar within the blood.
17. Fight inflammation
Health Benefits of Deep Sleep also importamnt for fight inflammation. Some studies found that people who used to get lack of deep sleep have higher level of C-reactive protein compared to those who have enough deep sleep. The AC reactive protein is a type of protein that can marked inflammation. Having good deep sleep will certainly improve immune system and hel the body to fight inflammation.
How to Promote good deep sleep?
If you having problem with not getting enough deep sleep, or suffering sleep deprivation like insomnia. You can simply try these tips to induce your sleeping quality :
- To induce good deep sleep you can manage a sleep-promoting environment which include dark, quiet, dark, cool and comfortable room. Sleep on comfortable bed and pillow will make you sleep better.
- Protect your sleep from any noise including pets, snoring and other noise that can bother your sleep. If you sleep in noisy environment you can use headband or ear plug to cover your ear and protect it during sleep. If your sleeping partner get problem with snoring you can ask him or her to check the doctor.
- Relax when you sleep and don’t think about work or your task. This may affect your sleeping pattern and remember to use your bedroom just for sleep not to do other things like watching TV or playing game. I9n other words clean your mind before sleep.
- Avoid to do some activities before bedtime such as working, doing task, playing games, problem solving, phone call and even talking to other people while watching TV.
- Begin to reduce your activity on evening and start to relax your mind. It is better to avoid of bright light exposure because it can give signals to brain to stay awake. You can do any light activities that can soothe your mind such as reading a book ( not a horror, detective or any thrilling book), listening to classic music, or doing meditation.
- Avoid drinking coffee, alcohol, tea or smoking that contain addictive substance like caffeine and nicotine. Caffeine may interfere with your sleep and it can causing you stay awake. Also avoid to eat before sleep, eat 2-3 hours before sleep.
That all the benefits of deep sleep. Due to its importance, we should never skip the deep sleep stage every night if we want to have healthy body and mind.