Why you should sleep more
According to CDC, 35.2% of all adults in the U.S. report sleeping on average for less than seven hours per night. And half of all Americans say they feel sleepy during the day between three and seven days per week. In this blog post, we’ll talk about the importance of sleep and why you should sleep for at least 7-8 hours a night.
Sleep more…
It was a difficult and long night; the baby was awake for most of the night. Laura is exhausted; the night before, her 4-year-old struggled to sleep. Laura cried. It is not easy to be a mom, she thought. She feels exhausted, irritable, and struggles to remember where she put things.
Most of us have personal experience with sleep deprivation, whether it is because of work, parenthood or late-night partying. Sleep deprivation affects your efficiency, memory, and mood. In the long term, it also increases the risk for long-term health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. Here are a few more reasons why you should be protective of your sleep.
Sleep improves learning and memory.
Sleep enhance learning; it helps you to learn more skills and remember information. It also increases your awareness and helps you to pay attention in important business meetings or classes.
Sleep improves our problem-solving and decision-making.
Sleep deficiency changes the activity in parts of the brain that is responsible for problem-solving and decision making. Studies found a lack of sleep can lead to excessive risk-taking behavior. For example, passing a car on a hill when your line-of-sight is not as clear as you normally would like it to be or harshly commenting on your friend’s political Facebook post, damaging the mutual respect you had, something you’re normally very cautious of.
Sleep maintains a healthy balance of hormones related to weight management.
When you are sleep deprived, you tend to feel more hungry than usual because the hormone ghrelin level goes up, and leptin drops. Ghrelin makes you feel hungry, and leptin makes you feel full.
Sleep helps to strengthen your immune system.
If you are sleep-deprived, your body might struggle to fight off infection.
What now?
It is clear that sleep is important to our mental and physical well-being, but if you’re a parent of small children or have a deadline at work, it is not always possible to get the sleep you need. Try to remind yourself that it is a season, and be thoughtful and strategic in ways you can take care of your mental and physical health by sleeping more. Maybe delegate tasks, ask for help, let go of perfectionism or enforce healthy boundaries. After these busy seasons, always go back to 7-8 hours of sleep, even if you feel you can get by with 4 hours. To learn more ways to improve your sleep, click here.
Information on this website is provided for information purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice provided by a mental health therapist or other healthcare professional. No information offered here should be interpreted as a diagnosis of any disorder, nor an attempt to treat or prevent or cure any disease or condition. Names, characters, places, and incidents on this website are for illustrative purposes only. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
