Modern people is tend to have busy and stressful life which make them to leave an important activity that they should spend one third of their time. Whats that important activity that you should spend one third of your time? Maybe the first thing that come to your mind is working or other activity but no, there is something more important, its sleeping. Students and workers thing that sleep is less important than their task and deadline without regard that sleeping is vital to keep their health. While sleeping, human body carry out many function and repair anything broken in order to maintain their function best. Lack of sleep may cause several health problems and disease. So lets learn more about the magic thing and benefits of sleep that you may not realize.
What is sleeping ?
Many people consider sleep as resting time and when our body restore enery and relieve stress. The truth is when sleeping, your body didnt stop it function. The brain and body system keep active while sleeping. Sleep also defined as state of mind when the body reducing consiousness and the interaction to environment.
Types and sleeping stage
There are some stage and phage during sleep, but basically it divided into two types based on the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) , the Non-REM and REM sleeping.
- Non-REM Sleep ( Including 3 stages of sleeping )
- Stage 1: During this stage you experience light sleep and will be easily awakened by noise or other disturbance. Muscles start to relax with occasional twitches and the eyes moves slowly.
- Stage 2: The eye stop moving at this stage and the brain the body slower brain brain waves
- Stage 3: This stage of deep sleep happen mostly in the first half of night and after you fall asleep. During this phage you will be difficult to rouse. The brain will show large waves . Muscle will be relaxed and the heart and respiratory rates are slowing down.
- REM Sleep. This type of sleep usually happen for 90 minutes just after you fall asleep and it promotes deeper sleep during second half of night. The eyes will move rapidly during REM sleep with irregular breath, blood pressure and heart rates. In this phage your body will be paralyzed and you may experience dreaming.
How much sleep you need?
The needs of sleep is tend to be vary for some persons. The sleep pattern of people also change for every life stage. Older are usually got less sleep time compared to younger. Its not because the older don’t adequate need sleep but they are experience sleep disturbance and easily awaken by noise and other things.
The requirement of sleep of people in different stage of life
- New-born babies used to sleep up to 18-21 hours per day
- Three to five years kid need to sleep 11-13 hours per day
- Pre-teens need 11 hours of sleep
- Teenagers need 9-11 hours of sleep
- Adult need 7 – 8 hours of sleep
What Makes You Sleep?
There are some substances which play role in triggering sleep process. The first substance is called adenosine. This substance is built up in blood while you are awake and will be broken down when you sleep. The level of adenosine will trigger sleep when your body need it. Another substance which control sleep is a hormone called melatonin. This hormone will make you feel sleepy at night.
This linked to the biological clock respond which also control sleep patterns. Biological clock or circadian rhythm is a group of cells in brain which work whole day and night . The light from environment which received by eyes will give signal to brain and control these cells. Then later it will trigger the production and releasing melatonin .
This may explain why we feel sleepy during night time. Other factor which also can induce sleep is produced by immune system called cytokines. Cytokines is a hormone which released to fight infection and trigger extra sleeping.
What the benefits of sleeping ?
Sleep provides many benefits for your health. Here are the list of benefits of sleeping that you may not realized
1. Strengthen immune system
The first health benefits of sleeping is for you immune system. Adequate and good sleep can improve the function of immune system and make it to heal the infection in the body faster. This may include the role of cytokines, which is play role in fighting infection.
2. Help to Fight Inflammation
Study shown that people who get good sleep in proper time are tend to build stronger immune system which allow the body to reduce and remove inflammation better. Lack of sleep may lowering the T-cell number and it may cause several health problem which is longer to cure.
3. Prevent from cold and flu
As mentioned before that good sleep can maintain healthy immune system and prevent the body from catching cold. Lack of sleep can lower the immune system function and weak, this may cause failure in their job , it will make you sick. A research with 150 people in track found that people who sleep less than seven hours are increase the chance of being sick compared to them who got enough sleep.
4. Prevent diabetes
It is important to get good and enough sleep. Its not only strengthen your immune system to fight inflammation but also it has benefits to prevent diabetes especially type 2. Type 2 diabetes is type of diabetes which the body is resistant to insulin. It can lead to severe health case such as blindness, strokes, organ damage, complication and etc. People who lack of sleep have 1.7 times higher chance to develop diabetes.
5. Prevent cancer
Proper and enough sleep at night time can keep you away from cancer along with your healthy diet for sure. Researchers found that people who work along the night are tend to have higher risk in develop colon and breast cancer.
6. Prevent heart disease
A study reported that sleeping less than five hours at night can higher the risk of heart attack by 45%. Adequate sleep can help the body to control the heart rates and keep the heart healthy.
7. Reduce the risk of high blood pressure
One thing that become the risk of a person who work at night and skipping sleep is the chance of developing hypertension. Stay awake at night can lower the body function to control the blood pressure and causing the high blood pressure. This case is not only occur in older people but younger can also experience it.
8. Alleviate stress
Having enough sleep can reduce your stress. During sleeping your body will produced chemical and hormones which can relax your mind and alleviate your stress. In opposite with this benefits, having stress can make you hard to sleep.
9. Keep you away from depression
Lack of sleep is not only can disturb your body function but also the mental. People who sleep less may build the symptoms of depression, anxiety and problem with self esteem.
10. Promotes good mood and make you happy
Poor sleeping may ruin your day at school or at work which causing many troubles and make you unhappy. This is why having enough sleep can promotes good mood and make you feel happier and healthier.
11. Remove toxin from the brain
A study by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) reported that during sleep the brain flush out the toxic molecules which later make it clean and work better.
12. Increasing ability to stay focus
During sleeping phage at night the brain doesn’t stop working and it promotes active mind. People who experience less sleep can slightly loss the focus and hardly to do their work. Having enough sleep at night will make you focus and you won’t be caught by sleepiness.
13. Boost memory
Are u easily to forget? May be you get less sleep, sleeping benefits for boost memory is has scientific evidence. When you sleep, your brain collect the memory and store it correctly. Lack of sleeping make you hard to memorize and keeping information. It is also suggested if you want to learn new language or anything, you better have enough or more sleep to increase your memory.
14. Increase alertness
Lack of sleeping may reduce your alertness and make you hard to pay attention. Make sure you have enough sleep before class or work. Some studies also found that sleep deprivation may lead to slow respond and attention while doing work, study and other activities.
15. Lower the risk of accident
Driving while drowsy is same as driving when drunk. Less sleeping is dangerous for you who used to drive everyday. The chance of having accident will rise by driving while feeling sleepy. Proper sleep has linked to brain focus and alertness which can make you a save driver and prevent you from injuries.
16. Improve creativity
Sleep can make you more creative. A study by Italian scientist in 2010 found that sleeping especially the Non REM phage can improve the ability in generating and creating unique ideas.
17. Prevent from speak disturbance
It is suggested that you better have proper and enough sleep if you have presentation on the next day. Being sleepy through the day can disturb your performance and decrease your ability to speak well.
18. Make you learn better
By increasing memory , focus and your attention, it will make you easily to learn something. Its not only stick to the kids or student but also to adult. Research reported that people who get good night sleep are tend to do better task and can improve their skills compared to people who stay awake 30 hours after learning. It is also important for kids who attend school to have enough sleep since it can improve their performance in study.
19. Help to control emotion and anger
If you don’t get enough sleep you will be easily irritated and small thing can make you upset due to loss focus and control. A study by research in Israel reported that lack of sleep may cause negative emotions which trigger by small thing.
20. Increase productivity
If you feel tired and you skip the sleep, it will be hard for you to concentrate to work and other matter that related to your life. Researchers said that if you want to have good performance and attention in job or conversation, never skip your sleep.
21. Reduce pain
People who stay awake at night and don’t get proper sleep are more sensitive to pain and it will make them suffer from chronic pain. Most medication including pain killer does not directly remove pain but it will promote sleep which can slightly remove pain. Having good sleep actually has same effect with low dosage pain killer medication.
22. Help to make right decision
A study which publish in Journal of Experimental Physiology in 2000 reported that there is significant impact of sleep derivation on decision making. People who tend to get less sleep are hardly to focus and making right decision. It is suggested if you gonna make a decision whether its financial cause or else make sure you have enough sleep.
23. Keeping healthy skin
Sleeping beauty is not just a myth. Adequate sleeping can maintain skin health and help to heal any wound better. According to study by Dermatologist from British Association found that people with good sleep are tend to quickly recovered from UV exposure.
24. Prevent skin from sagging
While you sleep, your skin produce more collagen which can maintain your skin firm and prevent wrinkle. Even if you using expensive anti aging cream to your skin, it won’t work best without sleeping. Dermatologist also found that sleeping less than 5 hours in night can make your skin dry.
25. Brighten your skin
Good night-sleep can promotes better blood circulation and oxygen transfer to skin and make your skin glowing. Of course as opposite effect, lack of sleeping may cause your skin look dull and unhealthy.
26. Get rid of puffy and panda eyes
Too much work burden or learning whole night will make your eyes looks bad with dark round circle. Puffy or panda eyes which show dark circle is a sign that person may experience less sleep. Actually this condition of dark circle is accumulation of fluid around the eyes skin which called edema. Having plenty and good sleep can help to get rid this puffy eyes.
27. Promotes healthier hair
When you sleep the blood will keep flow and deliver nutrition to whole part of the body including scalp and this may lead the hair to grow better. Actually because sleep can maintain overall body health, when you experience sleep deprivation your health will be disturbed and it also cause hair to suffer.
28. Restore your stamina
Sleep can improve and restore your stamina which is important in physical performance. When you sleep your body repair tissue, growing muscle, synthesize hormones and protein. All these process known as restorative stage that allow your body to restore energy.
29. Prevent from alcohol abuse
Based on study of Institute of medicine, mostly adults who have problem with sleeping will develop alcohol abuse and contrarily people with alcohol abuse may experience sleeping deprivation.
30. Prevent migraine and headache
It is true that lack of sleeping can cause migraine and severe headache. Migraine is a condition when hyperactive nerve cells start to deliver the impulse to blood vessel and trigger them to expand also promote the releasing of brain chemical inflammatory substance which make you feel pain. A study who conducted with 43 women published in Headache journal reported that good sleep habits can reduce both migraines and headache.
31. Improve vision
When you awake too long you will feel tired and same to your eyes. Lack of sleep may reduce your focus and lower your vision function even you may experience blurred sight and even hallucination as worst effect.
32. Promotes better sex
Adequate sleep is good for your sexual life. During night sleep the body produce hormones including testosterone which can keep the libido both in men and women. While sleep deprivation may also cause sexual problem such as erectile dysfunction.
33. Help to control weight
Sleep is more likely as important as food. Healthy sleep may help you to control weight and your waistline. Lack of sleep may cause your body to crave more food and its also tempting to have snack at night if you stay awake. It also mentioned in a study that published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinoloy and Metabolism that lack of sleep or sleeping less than 6 hours at night can trigger the brain to crave for food and decreasing the level of leptin and stimulating the level of ghrelin. Both leptin and ghrelin are weight regulating hormone. Leptin promotes satiety while ghreline promotes hunger.
34. Relaxing muscle
During sleep your muscles are relaxed and the fatigue will be remove. Sleep can help the body to break down the lactic acid which is the cause of muscle fatigue. Sleeping after exercise or gym can help your muscle to heal faster.
35. Help body to repair damage
This is the incredible health benefits of sleeping early for your body. Deep sleep and enough time of sleep let your body to produce protein and amibo acid which can repair cell and tissue damage. It is known that protein is building block of most organ and body tissue which play important role in body’s function repair and development.
36. Promotes development of body
Many researches has been reported that the growth hormones is produced and released when we sleep. It is why babies and kids need more sleep due to their body development. It is also linked with brain development that adequate and more sleeping may help kids to build better cognitive function.
37. Improve athletic performance
Sleep can make you become winner. But why? Adequate sleep can improve your stamina, energy level, focus and respond which are important in athletic performance. A good athlete will surely have enough sleep before they doing sport or exercise.
38. Provides energy
During sleep your body save more energy and prepare you for activity on the next day. Sleeping can give the body almost 50kcal which is same amount with a toast bread., its not much but by good night’s sleeping your body can feel better and energized when you wake up in the morning.
39. Promotes healthy pregnancy and delivery
It is important for pregnant women that they should get adequate sleep in order to maintain healthy development of baby and delivery. Lack of sleep during pregnancy may bring negative impact to the babies and delivery. Some researches reported that pregnant women who got inadequate sleep during first trimester of their pregnancy tend to have high blood pressure which can affected their health. Women who are planning to pregnant must consider their sleeping habit. For your information, sleep on side (SOS) is best position to sleep which is suggested while being pregnant.
40. Prevent from serious mistake
You may realized that when you feel sleepy sometime you make mistake. It may cause typo when you work or writing something. Some student tend to make 22% higher mistake when they dont get proper sleep according to Harvard medical school. The worse thing if the mistake of being lack of sleep cause dangerous accident such as the accident of Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. If you remember the Exxon Valdez Oil spill in Alaska on March 24, 1989 also happen because human error due to lack of sleep.
41. Extend lifespan
By all the benefits that have been mentioned above, we may conclude that by having adequate and proper night sleep can help your body stay healthy and prevent from many kind of disease. This may lead to longer lifespan and more quality of life.
Read : Health Benefits of Sleeping without Underwear – Sleeping Without a Pillow Benefits
What is sleep disorder ?
Sleep disorder is conditions related to several sleeping problem that may experienced by people. There are some sleep disorder that exprinced by people. Below are the list of sleep disorder and common sign that may indicate you suffer from those.
- Insomnia
This is common problem for mostly people nowadays. Insomnia is a condition when we are hardly to fall asleep. Many events can cause insomnia including stress and using gadget. If you experinced insomnia for at least 3 nights per week and more then 1 month, it means you tend to have chronic insomnia and you better check the doctor.
- Sleep apnea
It is also known as sleep-disorder breathing. People with sleep apnea usually have problem with snoring loudly while sleeping. It is happen because the blocking of upper airway and make you breath in slower rates. It is usually occur for more than 20-30 times during each hour of sleep.
- Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)
It usually happen to some people while sleeping and it may bother the good night’s sleep. RLS is a condition when people experienced uncomfortable sensation and paining in legs. Sleep deprivation is one cause that may trigger RLS.
- Narcolepsy
Narcolepsy is defined as over sleeping during day time even after enough sleep at night time. This may lead the people who suffer narcolepsy can fall asleep inappropriate occasion, place and time. This may be dangerous since it may cause injury and disturb your activity and relationship.
- Parasomnia
It is a sleep disorder with abnormal arousal. This is the main cause why some people can talk, walk or doing other movement while they sleep. Those movement actually come by the acting out the dream which visualize in brain
How to get good night’s sleep ?
There are some tips that you can folow to increase your quality of sleep and get all the benfits which provide by sleeping. Check these out.
- Make a schedule to sleep and wake up at same time everyday even on holidays
- Avoid having caffeine, nicotine or alcoholic drink before sleep it may disturb your sleep and make you hardly to fall asleep
- Exercise and doing sport can improve your sleep quality. Exercise for 20 minutes a day will be enough to get proper sleep.
- Its better to take dinner 3 hours before sleep. Having meal right before sleep can disturd your digestion function and sleeping stage.
- Avoid drink too much fluids which can make you go to bathroom frequently.
- Taking nap on day time may interupt with night sleep. It is better to avoid taking nap after 3 pm and if you want to take nap at day time, dont take more than one hour.
- Take warm shower before bed can induce proper quality sleep. It can relax your muscle and mind which promote good sleep.
- Put your gadget away from you before you sleep. Watching screen too long can disturb your sleeping pattern and make you stay awake. People who used to play with gadget before sleep are usually hardly to fall asleep.
- If you still cant fall asleep after 20 minutes you lay on bed, you better do some activities which can relax your body. This may help you to feel sleepy
- Use dim light and avoid bright light when you going to sleep. Light can interfere the production of melatonin which gives you sleepy feeling and make you hard to fall asleep.
- Having warm milk can make you sleep better and feeling sleepy if you find yourself stay awake while you want to sleep so bad.
- It is important to have good environment in bedroom. Keep away your bedroom from anything which may bother your sleep such as TV, computer or unconfortable bed.
- Make sure you have cool temperature when you sleep. Too much hot or cold temperatures may bother your sleeping pattern
- If you find problem with your sleeping its better to contact the doctor and ask suggestion or maybe medication that may get you back in good night sleep track.
- If you are a night shift worker, to avoid feeling sleepy , use bright light in your workplace and just consume caffeinated drink once before you start working. To induce proper sleep you should avoid light during day sleeping. Close your window, turn of the lamp and get rid of all light and noise that may interfere your sleep.
Those are the benefits and information of sleeping that you should understand. Never skip your sleep for any reason because sleep is one of vital activity that your body deserve. You can stay healthy and beauty with proper night sleep