A recent survey shows that more and more people are sleeping less than six hours a day and 75% of us are having sleep difficulty a few nights per week. Insomnia, when short-lived, is nothing to worry about but the chronic sleep loss is generally the big concern, which can contribute to health problems, such as weight gain, high blood pressure and a decrease in the immune system. It also makes us look sad and old.
Lack of sleep increases your chance of getting sick
Studies show that people who don’t get quality sleep or enough sleep are more likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus, such as the common cold. Lack of sleep can also affect how fast you recover if you do get sick.
Learn how to sleep better
1. Keep a regular sleep schedule. One of the most important strategies to achieve good sleep is to get in sync with your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle. If you go to bed and get up at the same time each day, you will feel much more refreshed and energized than if you sleep the same number of hours at different times. Consistency is vitally important.
2. Get all your required sleep in one continuous round. Fragmented sleep is not physically or mentally restorative and may cause daytime drowsiness.
3. Nap to make up for lost sleep. Every two hours of wakefulness requires a repayment of one hour sleep. If you ever need to make up, opt for a daytime nap rather than sleeping late. This strategy allows you to pay off your sleep debt without disturbing your natural sleep-wake rhythm.
4. Avoid caffeine after 2 pm. and alcohol 3 hours before bed.
5. Create a restful sleep environment: a cool, quiet, dark room with a comfortable, supportive mattress, and turn off all electronics.
Average sleep time
While sleep requirements vary slightly from person to person, average adults need between 7.5 to 9 hours per night to function at their best. Some people may, however, need as much as 10 hours a night and others make do with only 5 hours. Despite the notion that our sleep need decreases with age, the fact is older people also need at least 7.5 hours of sleep. Since they often have trouble sleeping long at night, napping during the day can help to fill in the gap.
Sleep is too important to shortchange
Like eating right and exercising well, sleeping adequately is a key part of your healthy lifestyle. It improves memory, spurs creativity and sharpens attention. This is because, while you sleep, your brain is busy consolidating the day’s learning into memories, continually reorganizing and restructuring them, which results, in part, to a better creative process. It also affects your feeling and your productivity. As for physical health, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke. It also increases the risk of obesity.