How does immunity depend on the quality of sleep?

One of the essen­tial needs of any per­son is a full-fledged sleep, which not only gives rest to the body, but also ensures the sta­ble oper­a­tion of the ner­vous sys­tem that reg­u­lates all body process­es. With fre­quent insom­nia or inad­e­quate, poor-qual­i­ty sleep, the body does not have time to ful­ly relax and recu­per­ate, and the ner­vous sys­tem is in a con­stant­ly over­loaded state. Due to the lack of rest, work­ing capac­i­ty and emo­tions can suf­fer, mem­o­ry is grad­u­al­ly impaired and men­tal abil­i­ties are sup­pressed, immu­ni­ty can decrease, and even excess weight comes on. How does this hap­pen? How much sleep do you need to not get sick?

Sleep as a necessity?

A per­son can­not be awake for a long time, both chil­dren and adults need a good rest, although with age the need for sleep decreas­es. In order to main­tain dai­ly work­ing capac­i­ty, full-fledged men­tal abil­i­ties and good mood, not to suf­fer from var­i­ous dis­eases, you need a full and high-qual­i­ty sleep. But what is a good dream? This is, first of all, the dura­tion of sleep for at least 7–8 hours, while the night’s rest itself must be of high qual­i­ty. That is, when going to bed, a per­son falls asleep quick­ly and sound­ly, wakes up eas­i­ly in the morn­ing and feels kind and rest­ed, dur­ing the night he does not wake up at every rus­tle, and does not inter­rupt sleep by con­stant trips to the toi­let, drink or any oth­er needs. In this case, we can say that a per­son has no prob­lems with sleep. If a per­ma­nent lack of sleep is formed or insom­nia haunts, this threat­ens with health prob­lems and a decrease in effi­cien­cy, and if the patient is engaged in poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous types of work or dri­ving a car, sleep prob­lems can turn into tragedies.

Negative emotions, irritation as a result of lack of sleep

Sleep depri­va­tion is a seri­ous prob­lem for both phys­i­cal and men­tal health. With con­stant lack of sleep, var­i­ous dis­eases arise: car­dio­vas­cu­lar patholo­gies, meta­bol­ic dis­or­ders, up to dia­betes mel­li­tus, and even excess weight are pro­voked. But often our emo­tions and gen­er­al con­di­tion speak of a lack of sleep, and a per­son can not always imme­di­ate­ly under­stand that he lacks full sleep. If peo­ple fall asleep on the go, in the most inap­pro­pri­ate places for this, sim­ply turn­ing off, this is already an extreme degree of the prob­lem. Usu­al­ly our body begins to give sig­nals long before major break­downs occur, and tragedies hap­pen due to falling asleep in the wrong place or at the wrong time.

So, a per­son who sleeps lit­tle usu­al­ly expe­ri­ences neg­a­tive emo­tions for any rea­son, lit­er­al­ly every­thing upsets or annoys him. He does not hold back emo­tions well, is quick-tem­pered and irri­ta­ble, his actions may not be log­i­cal­ly explained, and the lev­el of excite­ment may be too high. The body needs a good rest, if it does not get it, and it has much more activ­i­ty than peri­ods of rest, then the body and ner­vous sys­tem begin to give alarm sig­nals that some­thing is wrong. There­fore, emo­tions can get out of con­trol, and a per­son behaves incon­sis­tent­ly with the sit­u­a­tion.

Overweight due to insomnia

Often, patients asso­ciate the appear­ance of excess weight with the fact that they move lit­tle, they have a seden­tary job, and in the evening they eat tight­ly. This is true, but sleep prob­lems in mass gain are also to blame, although many are not inclined to draw par­al­lels between the qual­i­ty of sleep, being over­weight, and also wak­ing up lit­er­al­ly “wolf” appetite. Mean­while, experts in the field of nutri­tion and meta­bol­ic process­es say that with chron­ic lack of sleep, the body turns on the mode of sav­ing ener­gy reserves. He has nowhere to get ener­gy from, except to use food, so he begins to active­ly awak­en his appetite and, against the back­drop of stress, which is insom­nia for the body, con­sumes the food received extreme­ly spar­ing­ly, form­ing excess weight and spare fat deposits. Often, in order to fall asleep, the body lit­er­al­ly requires sweets and high-calo­rie foods, and sleep does not go with­out a bun or bun at night. Accord­ing­ly, if excess weight appears against the back­ground of poor sleep and increased appetite, it’s time to relax and sleep well, and then start los­ing weight.

Memory problems and sleep

Often, peo­ple suf­fer­ing from chron­ic insom­nia may also suf­fer from mem­o­ry, which is asso­ci­at­ed with the deple­tion of the entire ner­vous sys­tem as a whole. If mem­o­ry laps­es began to be observed, a per­son for­gets what he did a few min­utes or hours ago, you should think about rest and sleep. In a sim­i­lar way, it is worth doing if you for­get — where and why you went, what time an impor­tant meet­ing is, and much more. This is due to quite under­stand­able process­es: the body sup­ports the work of vital organs and sys­tems dur­ing a peri­od of stress, turn­ing off all sec­ondary activ­i­ties. And lack of sleep is a seri­ous stress, so mem­o­ry is also tem­porar­i­ly turned off. To improve your mem­o­ry and get in shape, you should review your sched­ule and include extra time for rest and sleep.

Decreased immunity: is sleep also to blame?

Often, patients tend to attribute fre­quent colds to the influ­ence of envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, stress and weak immu­ni­ty. At the same time, they do not asso­ciate this con­di­tion with insom­nia or a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the qual­i­ty of sleep, although it is the vio­la­tion of prop­er rest for the body that is one of the key fac­tors in reduc­ing local or sys­temic immu­ni­ty. Con­stant lack of sleep leads to inhi­bi­tion of antivi­ral pro­tec­tion, and can also lead to the fact that dor­mant foci of micro­bial infec­tion “wake up”. The ner­vous sys­tem in a tired state mon­i­tors the gen­er­al mech­a­nisms of the body’s defense, not sig­nif­i­cant­ly pen­e­trat­ing into the mech­a­nisms of immu­ni­ty, count­ing on the fact that the immune forces are enough. But when the reserves are deplet­ed due to the stress caused by lack of sleep, the immune sys­tem can­not ful­ly cope with the prob­lems, which makes patients defense­less against var­i­ous infec­tions. There­fore, if a cold occurs sev­er­al times in a row with a short break, and a sore throat has become a fre­quent com­pan­ion, it is impor­tant not only to see a doc­tor, but also to get enough sleep.