Many factors foretell if today will be a good day or not, from our environment around us to how our body feels. However, according to StudyFinds, the average sleep time a person got in 2019 was reported to be six hours and seventeen minutes, which is more than three to four hours under for the recommended number of hours to sleep (7-9 hours).
While the world might be busy, and many people need us, we need to take care of ourselves and our sleep intake. Why is our sleep that important? Let’s walk through this together.
Sleeping is imperative as it repairs our bodies and minds for the next day. Let’s start with the mind. By not getting enough sleep, a person might tend to forget things or not think correctly. This outcome could be dangerous in a situation such as cooking, passing by traffic, or acting in an inappropriate way that might damage a person’s reputation by the people around them.
Not only that, sleep deprivation might cause a person to be irritated, in which they might unleash their rage onto someone they care about. In fact, a study from the Medical Health Foundation found that people with less sleep are four times more likely to have relationship problems, three times more likely to have depression, and 2.6 times more likely to commit suicide.
For these reasons, by having enough sleep, a person can remember things, act appropriately, and control their emotions, which are very important in our daily lives. Along with our minds, our body suffers from lack of sleep. While we sleep, our body repairs itself by releasing hormones and repair cells that regulate the body.
Therefore by cutting the daily sleep time (7-9 hours), a person is more prone to sickness as the repair cells did not have sufficient time to heal the body. Being sleep-deprived leads to many problems to the heart as it makes a person more likely to die from heart disease by 48% and a 15% chance to have a stroke. In addition to these statistics, it is noted that after extensive research, Loughborough University found that a person is more likely to die over 25 years by not getting enough or having too much sleep.
For these reasons, sleep is critical as it allows our bodies to heal and work for the days before us and our life’s longevity. We are not superheroes or immortals who can get by without sleep. We need rest to ensure that our health and relationships are good and to allow us to continue for many years to come.
Sleeping is not weak as it is a way of healing. If you are not getting enough sleep, reach out to family, friends, or your doctor to find solutions for you to sleep better. It is an important task for yourself as well as the many people that you are close to.