Hormones and sleep, the impact of stress, improper rest and exercise on sleep

Mod­ern life leaves lit­tle time for prop­er rest and qual­i­ty sleep. Many peo­ple can­not afford even those nec­es­sary 7–8 hours of sleep per day due to the fact that it is dif­fi­cult to fall asleep in the evenings and get up ear­ly in the morn­ing. Often this is due to an excess of emo­tion­al events and stress­es in peo­ple’s lives against the back­ground of an acute lack of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, which does not allow the body to relax nor­mal­ly in the evening. In addi­tion, due to changes in life, the release of sleep hor­mones, which help in falling asleep, is dis­rupt­ed.

Hormones and night rest

It is known that as day and night change in nature, a per­son should also expe­ri­ence changes in the cycles of sleep and wake­ful­ness. The human body and its hor­mones, meta­bol­ic process­es adjust to the dai­ly rhythms of nature. And for sleep, as well as for activ­i­ty and wake­ful­ness, cer­tain hor­mones are respon­si­ble, the lead­ing one of which is mela­tonin. It is pro­duced at night, when a per­son is sleep­ing, and a decrease in its con­cen­tra­tion is caused by light­ing. Accord­ing­ly, a change in the rhythm of work — night shifts, late work, irreg­u­lar sched­ules — lead to sleep dis­tur­bance due to a vio­la­tion of the pro­duc­tion of this hor­mone. In addi­tion to this sub­stance, the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of sleep is affect­ed by sex hor­mones, adren­a­line and its ana­logues, as well as growth hor­mone and endor­phins. Changes in the bal­ance of these sub­stances, dis­tor­tions towards one or the oth­er even­tu­al­ly lead to dis­or­ders in the process­es of falling asleep and reduce the qual­i­ty of sleep.

Sleep Disorders: Should They Be Treated?

Full and high-qual­i­ty sleep of a cer­tain dura­tion is an essen­tial need of the body. Dur­ing sleep, the body rests, and the ner­vous sys­tem under­goes a “reboot” and restruc­tur­ing of its work, prepar­ing for a new day. Accord­ing to sur­veys, insom­nia is typ­i­cal for most of the adult pop­u­la­tion, but no more than 13–15% of peo­ple con­sid­er it a prob­lem and see a doc­tor about sleep prob­lems. Sci­en­tists dis­tin­guish two types of insom­nia:

• Acute, in which sleep suf­fers no more than two to three months,
• Chron­ic, when dis­or­ders of the process­es of falling asleep and the qual­i­ty of sleep suf­fer for many months or years.

Both of these con­di­tions require at least a con­sul­ta­tion with a neu­rol­o­gist or a som­nol­o­gist, and in some cas­es, med­ical treat­ment of sleep dis­or­ders is also nec­es­sary. A con­stant lack of sleep leads to the for­ma­tion of neu­ro­log­i­cal and somat­ic patholo­gies, exac­er­bates the effect of stress on the body and reduces life expectan­cy.

Causes of disorders: stress, lack of exercise, nutrition and more

Many peo­ple know this feel­ing when, after a hard day, when going to bed in a state of extreme fatigue, sleep sim­ply does not “go”. The rea­son for this is stress, overex­ci­ta­tion of the ner­vous sys­tem and con­stant dis­turb­ing thoughts that do not allow you to fall asleep. Stress is also aggra­vat­ed by a lack of full-fledged phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, so that the body spends ener­gy and gets tired in order, there­by set­ting itself up for prop­er rest at night. Usu­al­ly those prob­lems that are caused by stress or unrest are elim­i­nat­ed on their own, after haunt­ing events are removed from life.

Anoth­er rea­son for sleep dis­tur­bances is the fail­ure of a person’s inter­nal clock asso­ci­at­ed with the advent of arti­fi­cial light­ing, numer­ous gad­gets and the rhythm of life. This leads to the fact that the pro­duc­tion of hor­mones respon­si­ble for the change of sleep-wake cycles suf­fers, which leads to insom­nia. Lack of sleep is in itself a stress for the body, which aggra­vates the gen­er­al con­di­tion, ner­vous­ness and leads to the devel­op­ment of patholo­gies.

Physical activity for sound sleep

Any per­son knows that after an active day spent in motion or in nature, one sleeps much bet­ter. This is due to active phys­i­cal activ­i­ty against the back­ground of suf­fi­cient oxy­gen sup­ply to the tis­sues, which helps to active­ly expend ener­gy and get tired. Yes, for a good sleep, fatigue is nec­es­sary, and this is facil­i­tat­ed by phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, which is sharply lack­ing in the usu­al life spent in the office, bor­row­ing trans­port or dri­ving your own car. Before going to bed, you need to care­ful­ly ven­ti­late the room so that you sleep bet­ter, and ide­al­ly, also a walk in the fresh air. If you also include phys­i­cal activ­i­ty in your sched­ule 3–4 hours before bed­time, this will sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve falling asleep and the qual­i­ty of night rest. It is also worth refus­ing to watch TV and gad­gets, com­put­er games in the evening.

Why is inadequate night rest of the body dangerous?

At night, the body and ner­vous sys­tem need prop­er rest, and if you deprive the body of qual­i­ty sleep, this will invari­ably affect the gen­er­al con­di­tion and health. Accord­ing to doc­tors, reduc­ing the indi­vid­ual norm of night rest and sleep by just one hour a day leads to a change in the activ­i­ty of about 400 genes that are respon­si­ble for the for­ma­tion of dia­betes, hyper­ten­sion, immune dis­or­ders and endocrine metab­o­lism. And con­stant shift work, long gath­er­ings with friends, watch­ing movies and TV shows until late — this is a con­scious depri­va­tion of one­self of a good rest.

If the next day there is no oppor­tu­ni­ty to sleep longer, you need to get up ear­ly, at least what such an infe­ri­or sleep can turn into — this is lethar­gy and reduced effi­cien­cy, as well as drowsi­ness dur­ing the day­time. With severe fatigue and chron­ic lack of sleep, such drowsi­ness can lead to tragedy — if, for exam­ple, a per­son falls asleep at the wheel.

Con­stant low-qual­i­ty night rest threat­ens with headaches and pres­sure surges, which increas­es the risk of heart attack and stroke sev­er­al times. And even in the gen­e­sis of obe­si­ty, sleep depri­va­tion also plays a sig­nif­i­cant role. How­ev­er, con­stant sleep depri­va­tion on week­days fol­lowed by pro­longed sleep on the week­ends is not an option. Con­sis­tent sleep is impor­tant for health, and it’s bet­ter to go to bed and get up at the same time than to sleep off over the week­end. Excess sleep against the back­ground of a pre­lim­i­nary chron­ic lack of sleep is just as dan­ger­ous as insom­nia. it is impor­tant to change your usu­al sched­ule, if pos­si­ble, by allo­cat­ing enough time for sleep, giv­ing up some evening activ­i­ties.