Are you getting enough sleep?

Sleep is necessary for survival. It is just as important as nutrition, exercise, and stress management. Unfortunately, more and more people find it necessary to cut back on their sleep. The consequences for their health and quality of life can be devastating.

Did you know that your weight loss efforts could be affected by your sleep? A recent survey found that more people are sleeping less than six hours a night, and sleep difficulties visit 75% of us at least a few nights per week. A short-lived bout of insomnia is generally nothing to worry about. The bigger concern is chronic sleep loss, which can contribute to health problems such as weight gain, high blood pressure, and a decrease in the immune system’s power.

Top 11 Reasons to Get Enough Sleep:

1. Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.
2. Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.
3. Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.
4. Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.
5. Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.
6. Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.
7. Productivity: Not getting enough sleep makes it difficult to concentrate on daily tasks, such as responsibilities at work, school, etc.
8. Substance Abuse: Research states that young teenagers whose preschool sleep habits were poor were more than twice as likely to use drugs, tobacco or alcohol.
9. Decision Making: Sleepiness reduces willingness and ability to make decisions and increases the tendenacy of risk taking.
10. Drowsy Driving: According to the NHSA, falling asleep while driving is responsible for at least 100,000 crashes, 71,000 injuries and 1,550 deaths each year in the United States. Drowsy driving is considered to be as dangerous as drunk driving.
11. Aging: They call it "beauty sleep" for a reason. Studies show that getting enough sleep slows down the aging process while not getting enough sleep tends to speed it up.

Everyone’s individual sleep needs vary. In general, most healthy adults are built for 16 hours of wakefulness and need an average of eight hours of sleep a night. However, some individuals are able to function without sleepiness or drowsiness after as little as six hours of sleep. Others can't perform at their peak unless they've slept ten hours. And, contrary to common myth, the need for sleep doesn't decline with age but the ability to sleep for six to eight hours at one time may be reduced.

Why Don't We Get Enough Sleep?

Stress is the number one cause of short-term sleeping difficulties, according to sleep experts. Common triggers include school- or job-related pressures, a family or marriage problem and a serious illness or death in the family. Usually the sleep problem disappears when the stressful situation passes. However, if short-term sleep problems such as insomnia aren't managed properly from the beginning, they can persist long after the original stress has passed.

Other things that may decrease your ability to get a healthy amount of sleep include:

1. Drinking alcohol or beverages containing caffeine in the afternoon or evening
2. exercising close to bedtime
3. following an irregular morning and nighttime schedule
4. working or doing other mentally intense activities right before or after getting into bed
5. Traveling, especially jetlag
6. Environmental Factors such as a room that's too hot or cold, too noisy or too brightly lit 
7. Interruptions from children or other family members 
8. Comfort and size of your bed
9. The habits of your sleep partner. If you have to lie beside someone who has different sleep preferences, snores, can't fall or stay asleep, or has other sleep difficulties, it often becomes your problem too!
10. Shift work forces you to try to sleep when activities around you - and your own "biological rhythms" - signal you to be awake
11. Illness or physical conditions that causes pain or discomfort
12. Certain medications have side effects that include difficulty sleeping
13. Nightmares and Sleep Terrors

How Can We Get Enough Sleep?

According to leading sleep researchers, there are techniques to combat common sleep problems:

• Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule
• Don’t drink or eat caffeine four to six hours before bed and minimize daytime use
• Don’t smoke, especially near bedtime or if you awake in the night
• Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before sleep
• Get regular exercise
• Minimize noise, light and excessive hot and cold temperatures where you sleep
• Develop a regular bed time and go to bed at the same time each night
• Try and wake up without an alarm clock - if you need one, avoid ever hitting "snooze"
• Attempt to go to bed earlier every night for certain period; this will ensure that you’re getting enough sleep

Post Title : Are you getting enough sleep?

Are you getting enough sleep?,

sleep,

Are you getting enough sleep?