Insufficient sleep due to stress or bad habits

Healthy sleep is one of the main com­po­nents of a healthy lifestyle, along with prop­er nutri­tion and suf­fi­cient phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, not all peo­ple sleep enough today — some come home late from work or after extra class­es or meet­ings, oth­ers are busy tak­ing care of chil­dren, oth­ers are too addict­ed to com­put­er games or brows­ing the Inter­net. Lack of sleep neg­a­tive­ly affects the over­all phys­i­cal con­di­tion and per­for­mance.

The importance of sleep for human health

It is no coin­ci­dence that lack of sleep is used as tor­ture. It is eas­i­er to sub­due a sleepy per­son to his will and force him to ful­fill the nec­es­sary con­di­tions. If, due to cir­cum­stances, sleep time is short­ened, then per­for­mance inevitably wors­ens, con­cen­tra­tion drops. Exist­ing in such a regime for sev­er­al years can lead to severe phys­i­cal and men­tal ill­ness.

The main cri­te­ri­on for the use­ful­ness of sleep is its con­ti­nu­ity. When a per­son sleeps, at this time his brain is freed from the infor­ma­tion accu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing the day, sav­ing the nec­es­sary and elim­i­nat­ing the unnec­es­sary. Such an amaz­ing phe­nom­e­non as dreams is a pro­jec­tion of a person’s thoughts and impres­sions received dur­ing the day. But they have not been stud­ied well enough and can­not be con­sid­ered for pre­dict­ing the future, as many tend to think.

Trou­ble falling asleep or inter­rupt­ed sleep as a result of stress­ful sit­u­a­tions does not con­tribute to a qual­i­ty night’s rest. After it, a per­son feels tired and over­whelmed, which also neg­a­tive­ly affects his abil­i­ty to work pro­duc­tive­ly and con­cen­trate. To be col­lect­ed and atten­tive, a per­son needs not only enough sleep, but also a com­fort­able air tem­per­a­ture in the room, and the cor­rect orga­ni­za­tion of the sleep­ing place, and the envi­ron­ment.

Sleep deprivation and its consequences

There are a lot of rea­sons for lack of sleep in mod­ern peo­ple. Teenagers like to play com­put­er games or com­mu­ni­cate on social net­works until late, some­times they sit down for lessons late. Some stu­dents also enjoy play­ing com­put­er games, meet­ing friends, or study­ing for exams at night. Adult work­ing peo­ple may sleep lit­tle due to over­time. Well, there is no need to talk about the chron­ic lack of sleep of moth­ers of small chil­dren — some do not sleep well until 4–5 years old.

There are clear rec­om­men­da­tions about sleep time. For exam­ple, preschool chil­dren need to sleep 10–13 hours a day, school­child­ren — 9–10, adults — from 7 to 9 hours. But in fact, many adult work­ing peo­ple sleep 6 hours or less.

Lack of sleep leads to many seri­ous dis­eases. When a per­son sleeps lit­tle, his metab­o­lism wors­ens. As a result, the body requires more ener­gy and gets it from sweets and car­bo­hy­drates. In addi­tion, a per­son may devel­op such bad habits as night overeat­ing. Peo­ple who are prone to it eat not the most use­ful foods — pas­tries, choco­late. The ener­gy obtained from them is stored in the form of fat. There­fore, night­time overeat­ing is a direct path to dis­eases such as obe­si­ty and dia­betes.

In sleep deprived peo­ple, the immune sys­tem also suf­fers. Its func­tion is to pro­tect the body from harm­ful exter­nal influ­ences. Even one sleep­less night a week con­tributes to a sig­nif­i­cant decrease in immu­ni­ty. And if a per­son sleeps less than 4–5 hours for a long time, then he will often get sick with colds and infec­tious dis­eases.

Pro­longed lack of sleep also neg­a­tive­ly affects the func­tion­ing of the ner­vous and car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tems. When a per­son sleeps lit­tle, he becomes more irri­ta­ble, ner­vous, excitable. Not only phys­i­cal, but also men­tal health suf­fers — dis­eases such as depres­sion or all kinds of neu­roses can devel­op.

If a per­son cares about his health, then he should take care of acquir­ing good habits. And one of them is to go to bed and get up at the same time.

Healthy sleep is one of the best habits

All peo­ple would like to get enough hours of sleep, but unfor­tu­nate­ly for many this remains a pipe dream. Some­one sleeps lit­tle due to life cir­cum­stances, while some­one is hin­dered by bad habits — long-term view­ing of TV, movies or cor­re­spon­dence on social net­works. Even if a per­son is unable to influ­ence cir­cum­stances, he can try to sleep bet­ter and more.

How to start falling asleep on time and get good sleep:

• It is rec­om­mend­ed to drink a glass of milk or chamomile tea at night. In no case should you “lull your­self” with alco­holic bev­er­ages — they have only a short-term relax­ing effect and cause addic­tion;
• take a relax­ing bath, you can with a decoc­tion of chamomile or valer­ian root. While tak­ing a bath, it is also use­ful to lis­ten to relax­ing music or inhale the aro­ma of oils;
• it is advis­able to give up such a bad habit as watch­ing TV late in the evening or at night. A per­son who is in the same room with the TV turned on falls asleep bad­ly and often wakes up. The same applies to the habit of brows­ing the Inter­net and chat­ting on social net­works. Some peo­ple find read­ing books to help them sleep;
• to sleep sound­ly, you can take a lit­tle walk. A walk will free the brain from unnec­es­sary thoughts that have accu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing the day. It is espe­cial­ly pleas­ant to walk in the park or on the embank­ment;
• if a per­son is good at the art of med­i­ta­tion or prac­tices yoga, then a few sim­ple asanas will also help to dis­tract from unnec­es­sary thoughts and fall asleep sound­ly.

Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion should also be paid to the prepa­ra­tion of the bed. The mat­tress should not be too hard or too soft. The same goes for pil­lows. The duvet should be cho­sen accord­ing to the weath­er con­di­tions, because too low or too high tem­per­a­tures do not allow you to sleep well. It is also impor­tant to main­tain the air tem­per­a­ture in the room at 18–20 degrees.

Since the habit of going to bed at the same time is one of the main com­po­nents of a healthy lifestyle, it is nec­es­sary to do every­thing pos­si­ble to fall asleep bet­ter and wake up alert and active.