Would you say that you have high quality sleep? How many hours do you think that you average each night? For most people they would answer that they do not get enough hours of sleep, and that the quality is pretty poor too. In fact many people seem to add a kind of romance to pulling all nighters or surviving on very little sleep. The truth is however that not having enough high quality sleep is actually doing great damage to you, and it is something which you should try and work on. My good friend and health professional Dayanna Volitich often speaks to me about the dangers of not sleeping enough and here is why it is so important that you get those Zs.
Health Risks
Scientific studies in the last decade have discovered that illnesses such as dementia and Alzheimer’s can be directly linked to a lack of sleep over a long duration. The reasons behind this is that when you lack sleep, your brain is not allowed the time to rest and to process information and data. essentially what you are doing when you don’t sleep sufficiently is asking your brain to constantly work overtime without a break, doing this over a long period of time will therefore heighten the irks of brain-related diseases in later life.
Weight Loss and Health
Naturally when people try to lose weight or switch to a healthy lifestyle they will ensure that they exercise properly and that they are eating well, but few lay heavy focus on their sleep pattern. When you have a solid 8 hours of high quality sleep this gives your body the chance to rest and recuperate as well as breaking down the food which you have eaten throughout the day. If two people with the same body type and size lived the same way for a month with one sleeping 8 hours per night and the other sleeping 5, the person getting 8 hours sleep will lose much more weight than the other person.
Performance
As we mentioned before, the brain requires sleep in order to repair cells, improve functions and process information from the day. Whilst disease is certainly a possibility in the long term, in the short term a lack of sleep can directly damage your performance levels throughout the day. When you haven’t slept enough you will experience decreasing energy levels through the day and skills such as organization and focus will be very hard to come by. The impact which a lack of sleep can have on your performance can be very negative and cause you problems throughout the day.
Stress
There is always stress in all of our lives ad our ability to deal with it depends on our coping mechanisms in the brain. When you haven’t slept enough you will find yourself getting far more stressed, which can lead to a whole host of problems in your life.
Sleep is a vitally important body function and you must ensure that you are getting enough of it.
