How important is sleeping? We spend almost 1/3rd of our entire lifetime doing nothing but laying still, sleeping. Our lives have become extremely fast-paced and time-dependent, as they say, “Time is money” so, is it really worth it to spend that much of time doing nothing but sleeping? It is better to dream or to wake up and chase those dreams and make them a reality. These words might sound inspirational, motivating, and moving but these are words after all and these words are inspiring but undermine the basic necessities of rest. Yes, rest is essential and sleep is vital, a sound sleep can work like medicine, it can help you have a better quality of life and a better physique as well.
Sleep and its effect on our body are very well documented in the science and medical fraternity and studies are still being conducted to understand exactly how sleeping 8 hours a day can make you feel less grumpy, less irritable, less forgetful, and less fatigued. Inadequate sleep can influence our body in more ways than we think, it not only makes our eyes feel heavy, but it can also make us susceptible to diseases. Scientists have found in controlled trials that restricting sleep to around 25-50% of the normal 8 hours even for a day shows a marked increase in inflammatory markers called cytokines in the body, these markers might not show an immediate effect but may make you prone to auto-immune diseases in future but we are still trying to understand how sleep affects us so much.
Apart from the markers that can be measured only in blood, there are certain signs you can immediately feel after a night of poor sleep, for example, slowness of response or reflexes, mildly raised body temperature, lethargy or fatigue, and high irritability.
Chronic sleep deprivation has shown to increase the risk of chronic illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart diseases and the interesting finding in some of the studies are that excessive sleeping that is 9-10 hours or more also raised the inflammatory marker c-reactive protein in the blood which is associated with poor immune response and above-mentioned diseases. In some cases, chronic sleep deprivation can also make people more sensitive to pain.
Men and women may react differently to sleep deprivation a study conducted in 2008 found that even a single night of sleep deprivation can increase the levels of NF-kB protein complex which is responsible to trigger an inflammatory response in the body and the levels were found to be higher in women as compared to men. This means that females who already suffer from an inflammatory condition may feel worsening symptoms even after a single night of poor sleep.
One possible way to explain such drastic effects of sleep deprivation on our bodies can be that poor sleep affects your gut microbial fauna which in turn affects our digestion and may trigger the release of chemical mediators which carry out the process of inflammation in the body. It also holds true the other way around, having poor digestion can also affect the quality of sleep.
These effects of sleep deprivation are not only observed in the general population but studies have found that poor sleep quality can also lead to poor sports performance in athletes and it can make them prone to injury as well, maybe because of decreased alertness, increased fatigue, increased baseline heart rate, poor ventilatory response to exercise and slow reflexes, even in collegiate adults poor sleep quality was found to be associated with poor academic performance, a possible way to explain this is that while sleeping our brain builds nerve pathways that help us to remember new information and if this process is affected then it may affect our ability to retain new information.
All the above information indicates that how important it is to sleep 7-8 hours a day to sustain normal and healthy body function but in modern times when we are surrounded by so many distractions then how to make sure that you get adequate sleep, well the following strategies are shown to improve the quality of sleep,
- Regular exercises
- Switching off electronic devices and artificial lights at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
- Eating a balanced and nutritious diet to keep good gut health, and
- Deep breathing exercises, meditation, and other strategies to manage stress.
So, wake up and take control of your sleep as a good sleep routine is extremely important to have a fit body and a fit body is very important to make your dreams come true.
Written by: Shantanu Singh, Sports Physiotherapist, AktivHealth
DISCLAIMER: This is for knowledge basis only; not medical advice; if you have pain or functional limitations, see your local Physical Therapist.
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