Making sure that you get a good night’s sleep can be very important to your health and well-being. In fact, making sure that you get enough sleep is actually just as important as getting enough exercise everyday and eating healthy. With that being said however, the current state of society is starting to interfere with your natural sleep pattern. That is because people nowadays are sleeping far less than they did in the past, and on top of that, the quality of sleep that you are getting is more than likely going to not be as good as it once was.
Here are some of the top reasons why you need to get enough sleep.
Getting Poor Sleep Can Actually Make You Fatter
Studies have shown that getting a poor quality of sleep is directly linked to gaining excess weight. Those people who tend to get less sleep than others are more likely to gain weight faster than those who get a full nights worth of sleep. In fact, it has been proven that having a shorter sleep duration is a precursor to becoming obese.
Studies have actually been done on this matter and have shown that both children and adults who experienced shorter sleep durations gained 89% and 55% respectively, when it came to being obese.
While the effect that sleep has on weight gain has several different factors that are involved, the most important ones include your body’s hormones, as well as your motivation to go out and exercise. This being said, if you are trying to lose weight, getting a quality night of sleep should be a top priority.
To sum it up, having a shorter sleep duration is directly related to an increased risk of obesity and excessive weight gain. Unfortunately this is true in both children and adults.
Good Sleep Means Eating Fewer Calories
Numerous studies have revealed that those who get less sleep on a consistent basis tend to eat more calories and have a much larger appetite than those who get a full 7-9 hours of sleep per night. This is because sleep deprivations can disrupt your daily fluctuation in your body’s appetite hormones, and can even lead to poor appetite regulation.
One of the main culprits of this is going to be ghrelin, which is a hormone that stimulates your appetite, as well as a reduced level of leptin, which is one of the hormones that help to suppress your appetite.
At the end of the day, you simply can’t deny the fact that getting poor quality sleep is going to have a huge affect on the hormones that help regulate your appetite. When this happens, you are going to be more likely to eat more calories than you require to maintain optimal health. For that reason, it is best if you are able to get adequate nights sleep and eat fewer calories during the day.
Sleep Helps Increase Your Productivity and Concentration
It is no secret that you need sleep in order for your brain to function at optimal levels. This includes concentration, performance, cognition, and productivity. However, when you don’t get enough sleep, all of these are going to be negatively affected.
To help you visualize this, here is an example of a study that was actually done on a group of medical interns.
In the study, the medical interns that had to work an extended schedule including work hours that surpassed 24 hours, ended up making over 36% more serious mistakes than the other interns that were allowed to sleep more during the study.
If that isn’t enough to prove how important sleep is for your productivity, another study that was done found that shorter amounts of sleep can even impact some of aspects of your brain function similar to that of being intoxicated with alcohol.
With that being said, getting a good nights sleep has been proven to help improve your ability to problem solve, as well as enhance your memory, no matter if you are an adult or a child. Essentially, getting a good nights sleep is going to help you maximize your ability to problem solve, as well as help to enhance your memory. On the contrary, getting a poor quality of sleep has been shown to impair your brains ability to function.
Sleep Helps Maximize Your Athletic Ability
It is a proven fact that getting a better quality of sleep will help improve your athletic ability. One study that was done with a group of basketball players revealed that the ones who had longer periods of sleep had a significant increase in accuracy, mental wellbeing, speed, and reaction time when compared to those who had less sleep.
On top of that, having less sleep has also been directly linked to getting a lower quality of exercise, as well as function. In fact, one study that was done with over 2,800 women revealed that those who get a lower quality of sleep are linked to a slower walking pace, less grip strength, and even a higher difficulty of completing independent activities. To sum it up, getting a longer period of sleep is going to greatly improve many physical aspects of athletics, as well as physical performance.
Poor Sleep Is Linked To Heart Disease And Strokes
All the studies that have been done on sleep have revealed the same thing, the duration and quality of sleep you have is directly related to major health risks. These are the same factors that are believed to increase your risk for chronic disease, the likes of which include heart disease.
In fact, a review of 15 separate studies has shown that if you don’t get enough sleep, you are going to be at a much higher risk for being diagnosed with some type of heart disease or even worse, a stroke. However, the same study also showed that getting between 7-8 hours of sleep every night will help to reduce your chances of this happening. With that being said, it is safe to assume that getting any less than 7 or 8 hours of sleep every single night is going to increase your chances of having a stroke or getting some type of heart disease.
Your Sleep Pattern Greatly Affects Your Glucose Metabolism and Risk For Type 2 Diabetes
Studies have been done and reveal that the amount of sleep you get every night is directly related to your blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity. If you get the required amount of sleep, these risks will get lower. However, if you don’t get as much sleep as your body requires, your risks for contracting these diseases is going to increase.
In one study that was done with healthy young men, the subjects were limited to just four hours of sleep every night for a total of six nights. The result was that each individual had all of the symptoms that were associated with prediabetes. However, you will be happy to know that all of these prediabetic symptoms were reversed after just one week of an increased amount of sleep.
On top of being a precursor to type 2 diabetes, having poor sleep habits are also linked to adverse effects when it comes to your blood sugar levels. Those who sleep a total of six hours or less are more likely to at risk for type 2 diabetes, as compared to those who get over six hours of sleep per night.
With all of the research that has been done, it is safe to say that any type of sleep deprivation is going to be very unhealthy and lead you to becoming prediabetic within just six days. While there are many different studies that show a strong connection between a shorter sleep duration and type 2 diabetes, this can all be avoided by making sure you get over 6 hours of sleep every day.
Poor Quality of Sleep Is Linked To Being Depressed
If you are consistently getting a poor quality of sleep every night, there is a good chance that you are also suffering from several mental issues, one of which is depression. In fact, it is estimated that over 90% of those who suffer from depression have complained about some type of decreased sleep quality at some point.
To make things even worse, poor sleep has even been associated with an increased suicide risk. On top of that, those who report having a lower quality of sleep are also more likely to have obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia, and a higher rate of depression than those who are able to get the recommended amount of sleep.
With all of the research that has been done on the amount of sleep that is required for optimal health, it is recommended that you get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep every single night. On top of that, you should also be sure to have a healthy diet that provides all of the nutrition that your body requires, as well as get the recommended amount of exercise on a daily basis. When you do this, you will ensure that you are in the best health that you can be in.
