Rest, Recover, Thrive: The Surprising Consequences of Poor Sleep and How to Fix It!
Among the benefits of a good night’s sleep are improved learning, memory and mood, as well as motivation for other lifestyle-enhancing actions, such as exercise and healthy food choices.
Rest and sleep are essential for good health, helping to recover the energy consumed during the day.
Among the benefits of a good night’s sleep are improved learning, memory and mood, as well as motivation for other lifestyle-enriching behaviors such as exercise and healthy food choices.
Sleep process
The body restores itself, enters a different metabolic and processing state, while we sleep. Sleep reorganizes the brain for the next day, the lost sleep is not replaceable by any other known activity, medication or medical intervention.
The amount of sleep should be between 7 and 8 hours a day, depending on the individual.
Consequences of poor sleep
Short and interrupted sleep is correlated with:
- Increased mortality. Increased cardiovascular risk, elevated body mass index (BMI), obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes.
- Learning and cognition. Worsening of memory, learning ability (as learning processes are consolidated during sleep) and decreased daily cognitive capacity.
- Mental health. Increased risk of depression, mood disorders, increased irritability.
Cancer. Increased risk of breast, endometrial, prostate, colon, rectal cancer and acute myeloid leukemia. - Immunity and inflammation. Lack of sleep directly impacts both inflammation and immunocompetence.
- Increased risk of accidents.
- Decreased testosterone production.
- Lack of energy
- Decreased attention and mood.
- Decreased cognitive ability
- Increased stress level (due to increased cortisol).
- Decreased caloric expenditure during the day.
- Increased appetite and decreased satiety.
- Decrease in the overall performance of the person.
- Achieving deep sleep
Here are some tips on how to achieve sleep and rest for recovery and good physical and mental health:
Create an environment conducive to sleep. A dark, quiet room at a comfortable temperature helps to achieve it.
Limit caffeine and alcohol intake. They can interfere with the quality of sleep, that is why it is always recommended to eat a correct and healthy diet, and to have dinner only one or two hours before closing time.
Perform relaxation exercises before going to sleep. Being relaxed is very important, so that your brain does not create those moments when you can not sleep for thinking so much; meditation or yoga help to relax the mind and body, facilitating sleep.
8 hours of rest are necessary. This is the necessary time to sleep and get a good rest, as it is proven that it allows you to be more concentrated / focused in a better way in your daily activities and also puts you in a good mood.
Sleep without interruptions. The goal is to fall asleep with as few interruptions as possible, although it is sometimes complicated, since many people for one reason or another wake up several times during the night or during their sleep period.