All living things need to rest! Naturally, sleep is a must for us to survive and live healthy. It is one of our basic needs, just as important as food and water. Good sleep is really significant for good health. Then, ever wonder what happens when we sleep?
Many things happen during our sleep, they can be kind of interesting! So, here are some few biological processes that happen when we sleep:
Benefits Of Good Night’s Sleep
- Brain selects and filters information which only stores those useful ones, others will be erased (leads to better and healthier nervous system)
- Brain and body will get rid of toxic waste (work better when we wake up)
- Nerve cells will communicate and reorganize (support healthy brain function)
- Body repairs cells, restores energy and releases hormones and proteins (body enters recovery mode and produces growth hormones which can create new cells for healing!)
All the above processes are essential for our overall health, our bodies need them to function accordingly. Then, other than those that have mentioned in the above, there are also many reasons and benefits of why do we have to sleep and what happen if we do not. So, sleep deficiency can link to various health problems affecting the heart, kidneys, blood, brain, mental health and many more which they can also lead to accidents like car accidents and death, injury and errors like falls and broken bones.
In addition, here are the many more specify consequences of having poor sleep.
Effects Of Sleep Deprivation
Poor mental health, poor sleep is bad for emotional health. It can cause mood shifts, anxiety depression, etc. This is because sleep can support brain function that regulates emotion. Therefore, poor sleep leads to unstable or bad emotions.
Poor brain function, brain that cannot function properly and will impair your abilities such as concentrating, thinking clearly, processing memories, learning, problem-solving, creativity, decision making, etc. Sleep is vital for various brain function. Hence, poor sleep also gives negative impacts on one’s productivity and performance.
Weight gain, sleep affects one’s weight by controlling hunger hormones, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is hormone that can increase appetite and leptin gives you the feeling of being full after eating. Thereby, lack of sleep can make you hungry due to the imbalance hormones which increases your appetite yet decreases your feeling of being full. This results in one eating more and gaining weight, even developing obesity.
Insulin resistance, insulin is hormone that enables your cells to use glucose or sugar for energy. However, poor sleep causes your cell to be resistance to insulin. This can result in high blood pressure and diabetes due to the abundance of glucose or sugar in the body.
Weak immunity, sleep deprivation inhibits immune response and causes one easy to fall ill. When you sleep, cytokines are made in your body which proteins that fight infection and inflammation. In addition, your body also produces antibodies and immune cells. Overall, they can prevent sickness by destroying harmful germs. This is also why you have to sleep more when you are sick because the body needs more immune cells, antibodies and proteins.
Heart disease, getting poor sleep associates with the risk factors of heart disease. For instance, nervous system problems, inflammation, weight gain and insulin resistance. Besides that, it also leads to high blood pressure and stroke.
High blood pressure and stroke, good sleep provides your blood pressure to go down, giving your heart and blood vessels to rest. On the other hand, the less and poor sleep you get, the longer your blood pressure stays up.
As you can see, poor sleep can put your health and safety as risk, which why we need to sleep better, prioritize and improve its quality on a daily basis. Good and quality sleep allows you to repair, recharge, gives you possess well energy and concentration for your daily life. It just gives your body and mind to function the way they should.
So, it is time to pay attention to sleep! There are many important connections between health and sleep. Get a best and high-quality sleep, you definitely need it.
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