Sleep is one of the three pillars of health, along with nutrition and movement—it is a fundamental part of overall health and well-being. Sleep affects all aspects of your health, and conversely, it is affected by everything that is going on in your mind and body, as well as in your environment ((https://yahoo.com))
Sleep health goes beyond whether you have a condition like sleep apnea or narcolepsy. That’s why sleep problems and solutions must be examined in the context of who you are. Our medical system will change over the next two decades: healthcare will increasingly become simply “health.” As home sensors and wearable devices become more common, we’ll be able to detect problems before they arise.
Sleep makes up one-third of your life, which is enormous – yet it remains largely invisible unless disturbed. Some people wish they could skip over this part of life or try to sleep less, thinking they’ll be able to be more productive or have more fun. But sleep isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. Your productivity and fun time will suffer if you don’t get enough.
Sleep impacts all of your body systems—cardiovascular, muscular, nervous, endocrine, skeletal, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, urinary, and reproductive. Sleep also affects metabolism and is closely linked to weight gain and loss. Poor sleep has also been linked to cancer, injuries, poor brain health, and even an increased risk of glaucoma.
“We are not healthy unless our sleep is healthy, and we cannot make sleep healthy unless we become thoroughly aware of both its peril and its promise.”
-William C. Dement, MD PhD, father of sleep medicine
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Sleep is a daily period of natural rest. Our consciousness diminishes. Our metabolism slows. It happens every 24 hours.
Sleep is as vital to survival as eating or breathing. The body powers down, and the brain uses less energy than when we’re awake. We experience shifts in brain waves, breathing, and heart rate. Cells repair and restore themselves, taking advantage of this low activity period to store up energy. As we sleep, our cells in our brain remove metabolic waste and toxins that have built up throughout the day.
As we sleep, we are unconscious but our brains and bodies are still active in a host of other activities: memory consolidation, essentially meaning that the brain is reorganizing memories like a librarian shelving new books into the correct places.
Humans may spend up to one-third of their lives asleep. Recommended daily sleep time varies across our life spans, with newborn babies sleeping for 14-17 hours per day. Most adults require 7 to 8 hours of sleep per day, but the exact amount can vary by person. Some people with a special genetic profile may feel fully rested after just five hours, while some “long sleepers” need 9 to 10 hours of sleep.
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It is inadequate sleep or any disturbance from standard sleep patterns. It is not the same as “sleep disorder,” per se, although it can be a sign of a sleep disorder. Instead, we can think of disordered sleep as fragmented, interrupted, or generally not as restful as we need to feel 100% the next day. Unnatural disturbances can affect us.
Many significant causes of disordered sleep can be fixed through lifestyle adjustments, diet, and exercise. Efforts to achieve better sleep hygiene (limiting caffeine in the afternoon/evening, avoiding food late at night, and limiting screen time an hour before bedtime) can all help.
The most significant immediate effect of disordered sleep is extreme fatigue the next day. Over an extended period, disordered sleep is linked to heart disease, obesity, and high blood pressure.
There are six major categories of sleep disorders, including breathing disorders, excessive sleepiness, insomnia, movement disorders, sleep events, and sleep-wake disorders.
