Why does a person need sleep?

Sleep is a vital need of the body. What to do before bed to avoid dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep? Med­AboutMe talks about what process­es in the body occur dur­ing sleep, how to make sleep deep and full to restore strength and ener­gy.

Sleep facts

Sleep is a com­plex phys­i­o­log­i­cal process that is vital for a per­son. Dur­ing sleep, a per­son restores his strength, and the brain ana­lyzes and process­es the infor­ma­tion received dur­ing the day.

The rec­om­mend­ed aver­age sleep time is eight hours a night, which is the amount of time your body needs to recov­er. You should go to bed at about the same time every day. This will help form a reflex, and dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep will be much less com­mon.

The most use­ful is sleep from twen­ty-two in the evening to two in the morn­ing. This is due to the pro­duc­tion of mela­tonin, a hor­mone that is respon­si­ble for the restora­tion of body cells, adap­ta­tion to exter­nal fac­tors, affects the func­tion­ing of the immune and car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tems, reg­u­lates blood pres­sure, and also has antiox­i­dant prop­er­ties.

The alter­na­tion of dai­ly bio­rhythms — the change of day and night — is nec­es­sary for the cor­rect func­tion­ing of the whole organ­ism, both men and women. Dur­ing the night peri­od, many hor­mones are pro­duced and flu­id is dis­trib­uted through­out the body. Wak­ing up at night can lead to repro­duc­tive dys­func­tion in women, anovu­la­to­ry cycles, and dif­fi­cul­ty con­ceiv­ing a child.

A new­born baby spends most of the day sleep­ing. So, a new­born sleeps about twen­ty hours a day. Grad­u­al­ly, as the child devel­ops, the dura­tion of sleep is reduced.

Lack or lack of sleep can cause an increase in blood pres­sure, which is why peo­ple who do not restore their body’s strength enough have an increased risk of devel­op­ing com­pli­ca­tions in the form of cere­bral strokes.

Before bedtime

To nor­mal­ize sleep and fight insom­nia, it is rec­om­mend­ed to per­form the same rit­u­al of actions before going to bed, for exam­ple, brush your teeth, take a show­er. Read­ing a book before going to bed allows you to “unload” the brain, set up the body for a night’s sleep.

You should ven­ti­late the room before going to bed. The influx of fresh air will allow you to ful­ly restore strength, reduce the risk of headaches after wak­ing up. In con­di­tions of suf­fi­cient sup­ply of oxy­gen, one sleeps much bet­ter, sleep is deep­er — the phase of deep sleep length­ens. That is why in nature, out­side the city, peo­ple get bet­ter sleep and feel cheer­ful, full of strength for new achieve­ments.

In the room where a per­son is going to go to bed, it is nec­es­sary to cre­ate pitch dark­ness. The slight­est pen­e­tra­tion of light into the room will dis­rupt the pro­duc­tion of mela­tonin. For this, black­out cur­tains and blinds, as well as ban­dages for sleep­ing, are suit­able.

After sleep

After sleep, you should drink a glass of water in order to start the process­es in the gas­troin­testi­nal tract, to fill the body’s needs.

Wak­ing up is a spe­cial kind of stress for the body, there­fore, in order to reduce over­strain after sleep, it is not rec­om­mend­ed to imme­di­ate­ly turn on mobile phones, check mail and lis­ten to the news. Relax­ing music and soft day­light will make awak­en­ing as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble.

Loud sounds of the alarm clock cause an increase in heart rate (tachy­car­dia), stress hor­mones are released into the blood. The melody of the alarm clock must be cho­sen so that it gen­tly awak­ens the per­son.

Morn­ing exer­cis­es after sleep­ing in bed will pre­pare the body for a new day, fill it with strength and ener­gy, and have a ton­ic effect on a per­son.

Benefits of naps for kids and adults

Sleep­ing dur­ing the day­time can be both ben­e­fi­cial and harm­ful to the body. The baby needs day­time sleep to replen­ish ener­gy for life.

Adults may expe­ri­ence headaches after day­time sleep. Dur­ing the day, the lev­el of cor­ti­sol in the body is kept at a high lev­el. Sleep­ing dur­ing the day can make it dif­fi­cult to fall asleep at night.

It has been proven that fif­teen min­utes of sleep dur­ing the day, when there is a need for it and a per­son feels an irre­sistible desire to sleep, is able to restore ener­gy, switch con­scious­ness, and a per­son with renewed vig­or and greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty will get to work.

Lack of sleep

Lack of sleep has a num­ber of neg­a­tive con­se­quences for the body and affects the fol­low­ing points.

• Dete­ri­o­ra­tion of cog­ni­tive prop­er­ties.

Thought process­es slow down. As prac­tice shows, it takes more time and effort to solve the same prob­lem when a per­son does not get enough sleep, com­pared to when he gets enough sleep. Mem­o­ry also suf­fers — part of the mem­o­ries begins to be “erased”.

• Over­weight.

Lack of sleep releas­es a sub­stance called ghre­lin, which stim­u­lates appetite. A tired brain sends sig­nals to replen­ish its ener­gy needs for activ­i­ty. The result is over­weight and obe­si­ty.

• Fall of immu­ni­ty.

Dur­ing sleep, cells of the immune sys­tem are pro­duced that are respon­si­ble for pro­tect­ing the body from the effects of virus­es and bac­te­ria in the exter­nal envi­ron­ment. The chance of get­ting sick with lack of sleep becomes almost three times high­er.

• Addic­tion to bad habits.

Some peo­ple try to com­pen­sate for their lack of sleep with bad habits. Alco­hol and tobac­co prod­ucts are psy­chos­tim­u­lants, hav­ing a stim­u­lat­ing effect on the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem (CNS). When the body is in motion and the hands are busy with tobac­co prod­ucts, this method seems to be effec­tive. How­ev­er, it is not. It should be remem­bered that addic­tion to bad habits entails irre­versible health con­se­quences, includ­ing degen­er­a­tive changes in the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem.

Sleep dis­or­ders trig­ger the aging process at the cel­lu­lar lev­el — the body is work­ing for wear and tear. The skin becomes pale, earthy, dark cir­cles appear under the eyes.

• Decreased moti­va­tion.

When a per­son expe­ri­ences a lack of sleep, the moti­va­tion to move and achieve goals is lost. All the needs of the body are direct­ed to one thing — sleep.

Lack of sleep itself is stress­ful for the body. In addi­tion, a per­son­’s reac­tion to exter­nal stim­uli, sur­round­ing peo­ple and life sit­u­a­tions in con­di­tions of lack of sleep is exac­er­bat­ed. Sleep depri­va­tion leads to the pro­duc­tion of the stress hor­mone (cor­ti­sol). Any, even minor irri­ta­tion, can cause an exces­sive reac­tion in the form of a bad mood and tears.

Nor­mal­iza­tion of sleep is the key to restor­ing ener­gy and human health.