Importance Of Good Sleep

Some people may ask me what is importance of sleep? But first of all what is sleep? Sleep is a naturally recurring state of mind and body, characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, inhibition of nearly all voluntary muscles, and reduced interactions with surroundings according to Wikipedia. Some of you might sleep 5 hours per day, some maybe 8-10 hours per day. So in this article, I am going to tell you not only wonderful things that happen when you get enough sleep, but also alarmingly bad things that happen when you don’t get enough. We will discuss the effect of sleep on each of our body parts. In short I am going to tell you importance of good sleep.

Let's start with the brain and functions of learning and memory because what science discovered is that humans need to get sleep after learning to hit the save button on new memories so that we don’t forget. Recently it is also discovered that humans need sleep before learning to actually prepare brain. It is just like a dry sponge which soaks the information. American scientists studied this by creating two groups first is sleep group, they’re going to get a full 8 hours sleep and second is deprivation group going to get 4-5 hours of sleep. Then the next day, they put them in the MRI scanner and scientist found out that there is a 40 % deficit in the ability of the brain to make new memories without enough sleep. The reason behind this is a brain part called Hippocampus which is almost like the informational inbox of the brain. The people have an enough sleep have a lot of healthy learning activities. It's almost like sleep deprivation shuts down our memory inbox and any new incoming file is just bounced back. Thats the importance of good sleep for brain.

Sleep is also essential for our body. Next to the article is effective on the cardiovascular system. It takes only one hour of sleep to affect the cardiovascular system. If human takes 1 hour sleeps less than there is a 24 % increase in heart attack that following days. Yeah, you heard it right. If we gain that one hour sleep there is a 21 % decrease in heart attack.

Next to our article is sleep loss and immune system. There are natural killer cells in the immune system which identify dangerous, unwanted elements and eliminate them. If humans sleep only 4 hours a night there are significantly 70% decrease in natural killer cell activity which may lead to immune system deficiency which may further lead to different forms of cancer.

Sleep also has a significant effect on our DNA genetic code. A study has been done by British scientists making individuals to take 6 hours sleep a night for one week and they measured the changes in their gene activity profile relative to when those same individual were getting a full 8 hours of sleep a night. They found out that some genes were actually increased in their activity and the other half is decreased. Those genes were switched off by lack of sleep were associated with the immune system and in contrast, those genes were increased in their activity are associated with promotion of tumor, associated with stress and cardiovascular disease. This is importance of good sleep for DNA genetic code.

Sleep also affects our reproductive system. You heard it right. For the men we start with testicles. It scientifically studied that men who sleep 5 hours a night have significantly smaller testicle than those who sleep 8 hours a night.Men who sleep averagely 4-5 hours a night will have levels of testosterones which are that of 10 years their senior. So a lack of sleep will age a man by decade.We see equivalent impairments in female reproductive health caused by lack of sleep.

So to sum it is well said that Shorter the sleep, shorter the life. So go and get good sleep.