Sleep, which is a basic need and natural part body process, almost feel like a luxury nowadays. Though most of us would give anything for a few more minutes of shut eye, somehow life has made it impossible to do so. With the increasing demands of life these days, more and more people are having trouble with sleep. Aside from the fact that the hectic everyday schedule of most individuals is making us sleep late and wake up early just to catch up on things, we also don’t get the most out of the little time we manage to hit the sack.
The thing is, in order to be at your best in everything a good night sleep is necessary. Despite all of that, we all should know that sleep is a necessary part of our lives that we shouldn’t take for granted because otherwise it will affect our health. Getting an adequate amount of sleep doesn’t just mean waking up refreshed and alert, it also means lower blood sugar, recharged organs, allowing tissue growth and repair, increased blood supply in the muscles, recovery from exercise and a lot more. Here are more reasons why you should really start to value quality sleep.
Poor Sleep Can Make You Fat
When you don’t get enough sleep, your hormones and motivation to workout gets affected. As a result it makes you gain weight easier, especially when combined with poor diet. Having said that, you’ve probably familiar about the dieting myth of not eating after a certain time at night. Although that’s not entirely wrong, it’s still pretty inaccurate. What you should avoid is eating a heavy meal too close to bed time because it may make it difficult for you to fall asleep. However, nibbling on a light snack that’s still within your daily calorie intake is totally fine.
If you’re having trouble sleeping or aren’t getting enough hours on the bed, that affects your diet as well. Aside from not being able to train at your best, lack of sleep inhibits your body’s ability to store glycogen, increases your body’s level of cortisol, and create damage in your growth hormones. All of these affect muscle growth.
Sleep Deprivation Means Poor Concentration And Productivity
Sleep is a very important part of our daily lives because it helps the body recover from a very long day so we can wake up tomorrow well rested and ready to take on the day. So it’s natural that the more you lose sleep, the less your brain is able to recharge and be on tip top condition which affects your ability to concentrate, think quickly on your feet, solve problems effectively, and even remember simple things like names or terms you encounter on a daily basis.
It Enhances Your Athletic Performance
Lack of sleep leads to high cortisol levels that can affect muscle growth and you can also become slower, weaker, and less coordinated. Sleep helps your body regenerate much needed overall energy in order to perform at your best. Getting enough sleep allows your body to repair muscles and keep your hormone levels up. So basically, sleep is your body’s way of going into repair mode. Therefore, as you become renewed when you wake up, you are able to train harder and better.
Poor Sleepers Are More At Risk Of Heart Disease And Stroke
Regardless of your age, weight, exercise habits or even vices, you become more prone to heart diseases and stroke if you don’t get enough sleep regularly. This is because lack of sleep tends to spike blood pressure which can trigger cardiovascular and heart disease.
Sleep Affects Glucose Metabolism And Type 2 Diabetes Risk
Experimental sleep restriction affects blood sugar and reduces insulin sensitivity. In a study in healthy young men, restricting sleep to four hours per night for six nights in a row caused symptoms of prediabetes. These symptoms resolved after one week of increased sleep duration. Poor sleep habits are also strongly linked to adverse effects on blood sugar in the general population. Those sleeping less than six hours per night have repeatedly been shown to be at an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Poor Sleep Is Linked To Depression
Adding exercise to your daily regimen helps with all kinds of things that may interfere with your sleep, like anxiety and depression, but it also provides specific physiological boosts to sleep itself. Exercise strengthens circadian rhythms, and may stimulate longer periods of slow-wave sleep, the deepest and most restorative phase of sleep. Polls have found that people who exercise regularly, even if they don’t get any more sleep than non-exercisers, report a better quality of sleep.
Your Immune Function Is Better With Regular Good Night Sleep
When one’s immune system is poor, he becomes easily susceptible to illnesses. Thus, to say that strengthening the immune system is important is an understatement. Build your body’s defense system by seeking chiropractic care that doesn’t just keep the spine properly aligned, improves the nervous system, and develop immune system, but promotes the body's innate ability to heal itself, too. But even something as simple as making sure your body is well rested by enjoying a quality sleep every night already helps fortify your body and resist getting sick easily.
Loss Of Sleep Reduces Your Ability To Interact Socially
Notice that when you haven’t gotten enough sleep, not only that you feel too tired to socialize but also when you do try to you just fail at it. It’s either people will point out that you look like you’d rather be somewhere else or that for some reason you don’t get the joke right away or you don’t pick up social cues like if there’s tension between your friends, etc. That’s because your body is practically running on low battery which makes you process things slower.
Lack of sleep isn’t something to be overlooked. It’s important for everyone to get sleep and wake up well rested because when you do, you feel better, look better, and work better. However, the problem is that more and more people are having a hard time get proper shut eye which not only lead to poor performance but as well as health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, memory problems, weight gain, headaches, impotence and an impaired immune system.
Good thing some people have started to discover chiropractic care. They’ve found how it greatly helps them with their sleep troubles. Chiropractic adjustment relaxes your body, corrects misalignments that disturb body and brain communication causing unbalance in your body and affects sleep, helps relieve pain and teaches proper sleeping position. All of these can help you achieve quality sleep better than any sleeping pills out there. If you’re now thinking about chiropractic care, there are a lot of chiropractors in Singapore that can help you understand how it works and how it can help you specifically.