Everybody says they love to have a good sleep, but how often do they actually get one? These days it feels like sleep has become an afterthought, we are so busy leading these demanding modern lives we just don’t seem to be able to make the time for it!
When we crawl in under that comfy duvet after a long, hard day and rest our head on the pillow it feels wonderful, but we aren’t just doing it for the pleasure of it! The problem is that we really do need to get a proper amount of sleep in order for our brains and bodies to function properly! Unfortunately, our hectic schedules always seem to take precedence, and we are lucky to squeeze a few hours in, which is not really a sustainable lifestyle!
It has been medically proven that getting the proper amount of sleep plays an important role in our health and emotional well-being. Maladies both physical and mental, like being over or underweight, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety and cardiovascular problems are all exacerbated, or even caused by lack of sleep, it is that critical!
So, the question is then, why is sleep so important for our health? The answer is that the three pillars of maintaining good health are physical exercise, nutrition, and sleep! They are all intricately connected.
Here is an example of how these factors work together – If you don’t sleep well, you probably won’t eat well, either. People who are suffering from lack of sleep tend to have food cravings, especially for food that contains a lot of carbohydrates like sweets. Eating too many sweets can lead to a whole raft of health problems, from obesity, to poor dental health, to diabetes, all of which could have been avoided if you had simply gotten enough sleep!
The people who are the picture of perfect health will always tell you that they get plenty of sleep, so the three pillars are in balance for them.
The following is a list of just some of the health benefits a proper sleep can give you:
- Improves cardiovascular (heart) health
- Promotes cell growth
- Helps to manage weight
- Provides a boost to mental acuity, learning, and memory
- increases attention span and focus
- Combats germs and helps your immune system stay strong
- Reduces risk of injury and disease
So, just how much sleep should an adult get?
The long-standing traditional wisdom has always been that adults should get about eight hours of sleep nightly to maintain optimum health, and that isn’t wrong, modern studies provide evidence for that maxim. There are some people who insist they can do with much less, just four or five hours of sleep, but with very few exceptions they are just fooling themselves, and drinking a lot of coffee to keep it up! At some point, it will catch up to them in the form of health problems!
The bottom line is we need to get enough sleep to stay healthy, so make the time for it! Your body will thank you! Sleep tight!
