The Importance of Sleep
How important is sleep? Let's use direct
observation to answer this question.
How do you feel when you haven't
gotten enough sleep? Peppy and energetic? How about
when day after day you wake up and you don't feel rested?
Do you feel like taking on the world?
The importance of sleep becomes
pretty obvious when you look at how you feel when you haven't
gotten enough good sleep.
We don't need to know that rats who generally
live 2 - 3 years die within 3 weeks when deprived of sleep
to understand how important sleep is to our bodies and health.
But it does emphasize the importance of sleep!
There's plenty of research on the stages
of sleep, brain wave activity during sleep and how the
eyeballs roll around rapidly during certain stages of sleep.
But none of it, at least that I've found, is really useful
in evaluating the importance of sleep. So we aren't going
to bother with that type of information.
Plain ol' direct observation tells us
that sleep is important because we can't function very well
without it.
Sleep is the time we rest so that
the body can rejuvenate and recharge. The body
needs sleep and rest time to build and repair itself. Look
at the fact that babies can sleep up to 20 hours a day,
and children need 10 - 12 hours of sleep every day on average.
What does that tell you? The importance of sleep is obvious
when we look at how it's necessary for physical growth and
health!
Many folks want to learn how
to sleep better because sleep is so essential
to our mental and physical well being. With our modern lifestyles,
good sleep seems harder to come by.
One thing that definitely affects
sleep is a certain hormone that your body produces
called melatonin. Learn the relationship of melatonin
and sleep and you just might enhance your nightly pillow-fest!
Sleep (or lack of sleep) has a
direct impact on your health and energy levels.
No doubt you have observed that yourself! The main factors
that determine wellness or illness in addition to sleep
are:
Those are the primary elements of health
and they are all related. For example, if you have poor
nutrition or lack sufficient physical activity, the quality
of your sleep will suffer. If you're constantly stressed
out, that's a great sleep killer!
You know the importance of sleep!
If you want to improve the quality of your sleep,
start by checking out the information on this site about
nutrition, exercise and stress management, since those are
the things you need to address and improve along with your
sleep habits!
Cheers!
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