The importance of sleep

Importance of sleep:

Lack of sleep has many consequences, from minor to major, depending on your accumulated sleep debt. Short term, lack of sleep tends to have an immediate effect on your mental and emotional states.

Over the long term, poor sleep can contribute to a whole host of chronic health problems, from obesity and diabetes to immune problems and an increased risk for cancer. Plus it raises your risk of accidents and occupational errors.

Part of the problem is our propensity for using artificial lighting and electronics at night, in combination with getting insufficient exposure to full, bright, and natural sunlight during the day.

This disconnect from the natural cycles of day and night, activity and sleep, can turn into a chronic problem where you’re constantly struggling to sleep well.

It is essential to re-establish a healthy sleep pattern.

Even a single night without sleep can have health implications.

Going just one night without proper sleep starts to impair your physical movements and mental focus, comparable to having a blood alcohol level of 0.10 percent.

In essence, if you haven’t slept, your level of impairment is on par with someone who’s drunk.

According to researchers, 24 hours’ worth of sleeplessness breaks down cognitive faculties to such a degree that you’ll be 4.5 times more likely to sign a false confession.

Overall, you become more susceptible to "suggested" memories, and start having trouble discerning the true source of your memories. You might confuse something you read somewhere with a first-hand experience.

Lack of Sleep Linked to Internet Surfing and Poor Grades

Other research has linked lack of sleep to more extended internet usage, such as browsing through Facebook rather than studying or working. The reason for this is again related to impaired cognition and the inability to focus, making you more prone to distraction.

Not surprisingly, academic performance also suffers. In one recent study, the less sleep high school students reported getting, the lower their average grades were.

Sleeping well is also important for maintaining emotional balance. Fatigue compromises your brain’s ability to regulate emotions, making you more prone to crankiness, anxiety, and unwarranted emotional outbursts.

Recent research also shows that when you haven’t slept well, you’re more apt to overreact to neutral events; you may feel provoked when no provocation actually exists, and you may lose your ability to sort out the unimportant from the important, which can result in bias and poor judgment.

After 48 hours of no sleep, your oxygen intake is lessened and anaerobic power is impaired, which affects your athletic potential. You may also lose coordination, and start to forget words when speaking. It’s all downhill from there.

After the 72 hour-mark of no sleep, concentration takes a major hit, and emotional agitation and heart rate increases. Your chances of falling asleep during the day increases as does your risk of having an accident. 

In some cases, hallucinations and sleep deprivation psychosis can set in — a condition in which you can no longer interpret reality. Recent research suggests psychosis can occur after as little as 24 hours without sleep, effectively mimicking symptoms observed in those with schizophrenia. 

Sleep Deprivation Decreases Your Immune Function

Research published in the journal Sleep, reports that sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical stress.

In a nutshell, whether you’re physically stressed, sick, or sleep-deprived, your immune system becomes hyperactive and starts producing white blood cells — your body’s first line of defense against foreign invaders like infectious agents. So your body reacts to sleep deprivation in much the same way it reacts to illness.

Unfortunately, sleep is one of the most overlooked factors of optimal health in general, and immune function in particular.

Sleeping Poorly Raises Your Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

A number of studies have demonstrated that lack of sleep can play a significant role in insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. In earlier research, women who slept five hours or less every night were 34 percent more likely to develop diabetes symptoms than women who slept for seven or eight hours each night.

The Many Health Hazards of Sleep Deprivation

Aside from directly impacting your immune function, another explanation for why poor sleep can have such varied detrimental effects on your health is that your circadian system "drives" the rhythms of biological activity at the cellular level.

For example, during sleep your brain cells shrink by about 60 percent, which allows for more efficient waste removal. This nightly detoxification of your brain appears to be very important for the prevention of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Sleep is also intricately tied to important hormone levels, including melatonin, the production of which is disturbed by lack of sleep.

Tips to Improve Your Sleep Habits

Small adjustments to your daily routine and sleeping area can go a long way toward ensuring you uninterrupted, restful sleep — and thereby better health.

Optimize your light exposure during the day. Your pineal gland produces melatonin roughly in approximation to the contrast of bright sun exposure in the day and complete darkness at night. 

Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This raises your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you’re ready for sleep.

Avoid watching TV or using electronics in the evening, at least an hour or so before going to bed. Electronic devices emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it's still daytime. Normally, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 pm and 10 pm, and these devices may stifle that process.
Develop a relaxing pre-sleep routine. Going to bed and getting up at the same time each day helps keep your sleep on track, but having a consistent pre-sleep routine or “sleep ritual” is also important.

Avoid alcohol, caffeine and other drugs, including nicotine before bed time.

Two of the biggest sleep saboteurs are caffeine and alcohol, both of which also increase anxiety. Caffeine’s effects can last four to seven hours. Tea and chocolate also contain caffeine.

Alcohol can help you fall asleep faster, but it makes sleep more fragmented, less restorative and restful.
Nicotine in all its forms is also a stimulant, so lighting up too close to bedtime can worsen insomnia. Many other drugs can also interfere with sleep.

Chiropractic can help with sleep by optimizing your nervous system and helping with all those aches and pains that keep you up at night.

Dr. Stephen Kelly

Dr, Kelly works at Family First Chiropractic located at 142 Erickson drive in Red Deer. Call us today to book an appointment (403)347-3261 or visit us at www.family1stchiro.ca