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Bluepoint Medical Associates
Sleep – What Is It Good For? Absolutely Everything
Bluepoint Medical Associates
. http://bluepointmed.com

Sleep – What Is It Good For? Absolutely Everything

Sleep is one of those things that we know we should do but staying up an extra hour to catch up on that missed episode, or read an extra chapter can't be that bad, right?

The National Sleep Foundation has recently re-released a finessed version of their sleep recommendation chart. Adults, 26 to 64 years old, experienced no change remaining between seven to nine hours of suggested sleep. Unfortunately, 40 percent of Americans get less than seven hours of sleep. Not getting sufficient sleep comes with more than just the need for an extra cup of coffee in the morning.

Accidents. From disasters like Chernobyl and the Challenger explosion, to everyday occurrences of traffic and workplace accidents, fatigue is a huge contributor. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that in the U.S. drowsy drivers may cause up to 100,000 crashes and 1,550 crash-related deaths. Daytime sleepiness is more likely to incur a work accident.

Cognition. Even after not sleeping well, we experience trouble with attention, alertness, concentration, problem solving, and reasoning but it can cause permanent cognitive damage. Some studies are testing to see if poor sleep contributes to dementia.

Without sleep the brain is not able to consolidate memories and may make learning inefficient especially important for students. Sleep deprivation can also impair our ability to interpret and judge events.

Mental Health. A 2005 Sleep in America poll found that those with depression or anxiety were likely to have slept less than six hours a night. Those with insomnia are five times more likely to develop depression. Increased anxiety, mental distress, and depressive symptoms are often reported by adults with chronic sleep loss.

Physical Health. Studies are finding that inappropriate amounts of sleep are often found with a slew of health concerns including cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, and even death.

Wellness, Weight, and Beauty. Certain things happen in your sleep, and only in specific stages of sleep, which is why going through complete sleep cycles is so important. Growth hormones are released during slumber, which help in growing for children and for adults aid in muscle mass, thickened skin, and strengthening of bones.

Tissue repair may occur during deep sleep as well. Lack of sleep causes more cortisol, the stress hormone, to be produced which comes with a variety of health problems of its own. Cortisol is thought to break down skin collagen, increase cardiovascular problems, and factor into weight gain.

Not sleeping well also causes imbalances to ghrelin and leptin levels. Ghrelin is a hormone that causes hunger while leptin suppresses appetite. Not only is appetite increased with poor sleep, but so are a person's cravings for “comfort foods” high-carb, high-fatty goodness.

To top it off, our energy levels decrease with shortened sleep meaning the chances of ending up at the gym drop, increasing risks of illness and obesity.

Sleep is a basic building block for overall health, yet very difficult for many of us to obtain. We can feel the effects of lost sleep the morning after, but the long-term consequences are just beginning to be realized. We should work towards making sleep a new priority in our health regime. Happy sleeping.

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