8 Ways How Sleep Helps Your Physical Body and Mental Health
Of everything that contributes towards our health and overall well-being, sleep is perhaps the one that the majority of us take for granted. The ignorance towards sleep isn’t only confined to the laymen, but even the health professionals took their time to finally realize the importance of a good night’s sleep and play their role in debunking the myths associated with it. It is likely that someone at some point of your life must have told you that getting at least seven hours of sleep every day is imperative to the extent of no compromise. But how many of us have actually stopped to wonder what are the benefits associated with investing this many hours of your day on sleeping? After all, if the benefits are not supported by substantial evidence or are achievable via alternatives, why would you want to spend as much as around a quarter of your day while sleeping?
Rest assured, the benefits that we are going to highlight have been proven with research to be effective. The aim of this article is to let you know how things could get very wrong in your routine life if you consistently continue to ignore its importance. We have accentuated the top 10 evidence-based benefits that you will get to relish if you change your lifestyle and get seven hours of good night’s sleep on a regular basis.
1. Better Defense Against Stress
Isn’t it totally fair to state that stress has become a part of our lives regardless of who we are and what we do in this time and age? There was perhaps a time when stress sounded more relevant to the professions of healthcare, law, management, etc. But today, everyone has their own demons to fight. Even if professional life seems to be going smoothly, there is a chance that there might be complications in their personal lives as a source of excessive stress.
Owing to the fact that regular exposure to excessive stress can eventually lead to common mental disorders including the likes of depression that has been associated with fatalities as well, it is indispensable to take stress management seriously. If you have a similar opinion, guess what is unparalleled in helping you secure your mental health against excessive stress? Yes, it is sufficient hours of sleep.
As per the research, people who ignore at least six to seven hours of sleep on a routine basis are more likely to have elevated levels of stress hormones than otherwise.
2. A Boost To Your Cognitive Abilities
What is it that you desire the most out of your mind? If you are being totally honest, making you smarter and sharper with enhanced cognitive abilities pretty much sums up your expectations out of your mind. Think about the tips and tricks that you regularly put to use to accomplish the same purpose. Perhaps, you have been solving the analytical quizzes on the internet, taking multiple IQ tests, solving the puzzles, or reading a lot just so you can get the best of cognitive performance out of your mind. But there’s an important factor that we usually end up missing when it comes to giving a boost to our cognitive abilities. Yes, that prominent factor is sufficient hours of good night’s sleep.
Remember that none of your other strategies are likely to work for you if you fail to let your mind have the time to recharge during the hours of sleep. A word of caution, though. Being cognitively strong doesn’t necessarily mean that you will become the professor’s favorite since you know all the answers. However, in terms of having a sharper mind, better focus, and enhanced attention, you would surely be able to get the edge over the rest of your classmates or colleagues.
A Step Towards Eidetic Memory
Take a moment and think of the character of Sherlock Holmes and then write down everything that you find impressive and inspiring about the character. We can bet that his eidetic memory, the ability to observe and remember every minor detail will make at least the top three in your list. What if we told you that photographic memory is not as much of a fantasy concept as you would like to believe? If you really are excited about the idea of sharpening your memory and turning into your own version of real-life Sherlock Holmes, your best bet is to focus on getting sufficient hours of sleep every night.
The hours that you spend sleeping are like the leisure time for your brain that it can use to properly store and organize memory. As a consequence, it’ll increasingly become a rare occasion that you will end up forgetting anything of importance. Getting your partner mad at you because you forgot the anniversary, the silent treatment of a friend because you didn’t wish her on her birthday, missing the deadline on an important report because it slipped your mind, you will never have to go through any of that again.
4. A Natural Painkiller
It’s weird that a lot of us have slowly started to feel comfortable with the excessive use of pharmaceutical products. It is important to realize that regardless of what brand or medicine you are using, there is always a risk of known or unknown, direct or indirect side effects that you’ll experience in the long run. As such, an impeccable solution would be to turn to a natural alternative that can be as effective in reducing the pain as medication.
As per the research, such a natural alternative could be getting sufficient hours of sleep every night. The study has shown that the pain threshold for an individual is likely to be brought down if the mind and body are deprived of sleep. Under such circumstances, the sensation is going to be rather exaggerated for you. What’s more, is that during the hours of sleep, you would also be able to give yourself a break from the constant pain if you have suffered from an injury. Once you are in deep sleep, it is unlikely that you will continue to feel the associated pain.
5. Say Goodbye To Hypertension
Hypertension has turned into a major curse for the human race. A wide range of cardiovascular disorders is directly linked to hypertension. If you are someone who takes his health any seriously, you would perhaps already be familiar with the cardiovascular diseases being the top-notch concern of today in the niche of chronic diseases. Be it in terms of fatalities or the economic burden, such disorders cast havoc on your overall well-being.
One of the leading factors which contribute to pronouncing hypertension is excessive stress. As already stated, getting six to seven hours of sleep every night is a surefire way to manage routine stress more effectively. Once the stress is taken out of the question, the probability of hypertension still managing to cling on is reduced to negligible.
Wouldn’t you say that securing your heart health is a priority for you? If so, it is time that you stop ignoring sufficient hours of sleep in the night and protect yourself against a risk that directly threatens your life.
6. Reduced Risk Of Diabetes
Here’s another good news; your heart health or enhanced protection against cardiovascular diseases is not all that sufficient hours of sleep accomplishes for you. Its effects in terms of preventing chronic medical conditions go way beyond that. In the year 2019, it is almost next to impossible for you to not have a family member, a friend, or an acquaintance that you know is suffering from Diabetes Mellitus. It may not sound like a big deal as we are usually ignorant enough to confine the ramifications to avoiding sugar and taking regular medication, however, consider the possibility of increased heart load, blindness, and malfunctioning kidneys which are all associated with Diabetes Mellitus and you will surely begin to understand how important it is to protect yourself against it.
If there are two things which can make it absolutely sure that you will never end up acquiring this disorder, it is regular exercise/physical fitness and sufficient hours of sleep every night. It has been shown with research that the sleep hours enable your body to better process glucose and prevent its unnecessary accumulation. Sleep can also stabilize the hormonal levels especially those of insulin to serve the same purpose.
7. A Reinforcement For Your Immune System
Sometimes, you get sick and get medicine to find the cure. Other times, you give it some time and find yourself fighting the illness and recovery all by yourself. This natural, inbuilt force that enables you to fight the infection without medication is your immune system. As such, it is evident that the stronger and more optimally functioning the immune system, the better are your chances of keeping the illnesses at bay.
Therefore, if you have recently been finding yourself stuck with illnesses, if your recovery times have been stretching more than usual, it is perhaps an indication from your body that your immune system needs some reinforcement to function optimally. Not to worry, though. There’s a lot that you can do to strengthen your immune system but one of the simplest yet tried and tested strategy to accomplish the task is improving your sleep patterns and getting at least six to seven hours of sleep on regular basis.
This enables your body to stimulate the production of chemicals which contribute to the enhanced ability of your immune system to fight infections all by itself without the need of pharmaceutics.
8. Become A Jolly Good Fellow
Look around yourself, there surely will be a bunch of people you identify as having a cranky personality while others who are rather more jolly and friendly in general. Do you know the primary difference between these two types of people? It’s that of how many hours of sleep do they get on a regular basis. Nobody has a naturally cranky personality. Why would anyone like to be grumpy at all times? For the most part, people who are such are frustrated at themselves for not finding a way out of being easily irritated. They want to join the jolly clan as well but just don’t know how to do that.
If you have been somewhat like that, you are in luck since we can tell you the easiest of solutions to your problem. Starting from today, get at least six to seven hours of sleep every night and it will only be a matter of time before you will start to find yourself in a stable, happier, more content mood throughout the day. Being jollier, more positive, and happier, in general, will eventually become a part of your personality.
Conclusion
You’d be amazed to know that we had a very hard time choosing the benefits associated with sufficient hours of sleep to mention in this article. The reason is that there are so many benefits of sleep that a single article may not be able to do justice and thoroughly highlight all of them. We have, nonetheless, tried to accentuate the most prominent ones, the ones that you are most likely to relate to, in order to give you a better understanding of why it’s going to be a wise decision to put an effort into making time and getting enough hours of sleep on a regular basis.
All in all, it is fair to conclude that incorporating six to seven hours of good night’s sleep every day as a minor change of lifestyle has the potential to dramatically change your personal and professional life for the better. It surely makes you a more creative, more productive individual and turns you into a charming personality that gives off positive vibes and energy. If all of that sounds interesting to you, all you have to do is stop being ignorant towards your sleep. The next episode of your favorite TV show can wait, your work can wait, your thoughts can pause, but getting sufficient hours of good night’s sleep is absolutely uncompromisable.
