Why is sleep so important to humans?

In recent decades, peo­ple are mak­ing more and more efforts to increase the dura­tion and qual­i­ty of life. Qual­i­ty nutri­tion, a healthy lifestyle, work on emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal dif­fi­cul­ties. They talk about it on TV screens, in videos on the Inter­net, write in social net­works, books and on spe­cial­ized sites. Qual­i­ty sleep occu­pies a spe­cial place in the val­ue sys­tem of a per­son con­cerned about their health. Regard­less of whether a “lark” per­son or an “owl”, a sleep­er or not, each of the peo­ple needs rest and time to recu­per­ate. If this basic phys­i­o­log­i­cal need is neglect­ed, unpleas­ant health con­se­quences will fol­low.

Sleep is a necessary rest for the human body.

Bare­ly born, a per­son sleeps most of the time, with breaks for food and going to the toi­let. Long sleep is nec­es­sary for his phys­i­cal and men­tal devel­op­ment. The baby is not yet strong enough to stay awake for more than an hour. Grad­u­al­ly, he grows up and it takes less and less time to rest.

How­ev­er, even an adult is rec­om­mend­ed to sleep at least eight hours a day. Dur­ing this time, spent ener­gy resources are restored, immu­ni­ty is strength­ened, mus­cles relax, and the ner­vous sys­tem gets rest. All process­es in the human body slow down, and in the morn­ing he gets up with renewed vig­or.

In addi­tion to the required amount of sleep, you need to pay atten­tion to its qual­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy. The habit of going to bed late or doing it at dif­fer­ent times neg­a­tive­ly affects well-being. In the morn­ing, a per­son may feel lethar­gic, uncol­lect­ed, and take a long time to recov­er.

Those who go to bed around ten o’clock in the evening wake up much more vig­or­ous and rest­ed. And sleep in a well-ven­ti­lat­ed dark room until at least six in the morn­ing.

The right habits in the sched­ule of the day con­tribute not only to phys­i­cal health, but also to a bet­ter appear­ance and good mood.

Can stress cause sleep problems?

Stress and lack of sleep are inter­re­lat­ed and come out of one anoth­er. Often life’s prob­lems, trou­bles unset­tle a per­son so much that he can­not fall asleep, even if he is very tired.

Obses­sive thoughts, severe fatigue, irri­tabil­i­ty make him ner­vous, emo­tion­al­ly unsta­ble. At dif­fer­ent peri­ods of life and depend­ing on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the psy­che, life expe­ri­ence, self-con­fi­dence, rela­tion­ships with loved ones, peo­ple suf­fer from insom­nia for var­i­ous rea­sons.

These can be prob­lems or work­load in school or at work, dif­fi­cul­ties in rela­tion­ships with the team, friends or fam­i­ly. Own mis­takes, mis­cal­cu­la­tions also often pre­vent a per­son from falling asleep. Feel­ings of guilt, con­science, fears — all this over­takes in the evening and does not allow you to relax.

Some peo­ple dur­ing stress­ful sit­u­a­tions exac­er­bate bad habits: smok­ing, overeat­ing, drink­ing. All this only exac­er­bates the prob­lem. First of all, you should try to estab­lish your dai­ly rou­tine: do all the pro­ce­dures at about the same time.

Before going to bed, it is good to take a walk in the fresh air. Less use of smart­phones and com­put­ers, avoid con­flicts, eat right, not for­get­ting about reg­u­lar meals. You can please your­self by spend­ing time and mon­ey on your favorite activ­i­ties, hob­bies, going for a mas­sage, going to the cin­e­ma with friends, going out into nature, buy­ing clothes or equip­ment. You need to try to dis­tract your­self from the caus­es of stress as much as pos­si­ble.

If these mea­sures do not help, you should con­tact a psy­chother­a­pist or neu­rol­o­gist. They will con­duct ther­a­py, if nec­es­sary, pre­scribe seda­tives or sleep­ing pills. Some­times the cause-and-effect rela­tion­ships change, and lack of sleep becomes a cause of stress.

If you neglect the needs of the body for rest for any rea­son for a long time, then every­thing will end in a stress­ful state in which it will be dif­fi­cult to fall asleep. So there is a kind of vicious cir­cle.

The habit of constantly working

Young peo­ple often suc­cess­ful­ly com­bine a hec­tic vaca­tion and study or work dur­ing the day. Walk­ing and hav­ing fun at mid­night, it is enough for them to drink a mug of cof­fee or ener­gy drink to feel full of ener­gy again in the morn­ing. How­ev­er, such a mock­ery of the body, as a rule, does not last long.

Even the most per­sis­tent and healthy boys and girls begin to get sick more often after a while. They notice that it becomes hard­er for them to con­cen­trate and keep up with every­thing. But the life sit­u­a­tion is such that a stu­dent needs to earn his liv­ing and min­i­mal expens­es, and there is prac­ti­cal­ly no time left for sleep.

Then young peo­ple are forced to adapt, to sleep in fits and starts: on the road, in the back desks at lec­tures, at lunchtime. By the end of the insti­tute, it becomes a lit­tle eas­i­er to observe the regime of work and rest.

How­ev­er, the habit of con­stant­ly work­ing for some remains for life. The man seems to have adapt­ed well enough, and he uses his resources with­out respite. Name­ly, he stud­ies and works in any free time. But to live at such a pace with­out cer­tain con­se­quences for the body is not long.

Consequences of chronic sleep deprivation

Exces­sive load, over­work and lack of sleep always have unpleas­ant con­se­quences. Some of them are elim­i­nat­ed dur­ing the nor­mal­iza­tion of the regime. The appear­ance wors­ened dur­ing sleep­less nights improves, the skin becomes less pale, puffi­ness of the face and bruis­es under the eyes dis­ap­pear.

Drowsi­ness, irri­tabil­i­ty, dizzi­ness, decreased men­tal abil­i­ties and con­cen­tra­tion often accom­pa­ny sleep depri­va­tion and dis­ap­pear when a per­son begins to sleep nor­mal­ly. But if sleep is neglect­ed for long weeks and months, chron­ic sleep depri­va­tion devel­ops.

It has severe, not always avoid­able con­se­quences for human health. These include prob­lems with the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem, vio­la­tion of pres­sure, strokes, veg­e­ta­tive-vas­cu­lar dys­to­nia, visu­al impair­ment, obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­ders, hal­lu­ci­na­tions and faint­ing.

Chron­ic fatigue syn­drome grad­u­al­ly devel­ops, which is char­ac­ter­ized by mus­cle pain, dis­ori­en­ta­tion in space, fever, chills. Sleep defi­cien­cy exac­er­bates all exist­ing dis­eases, reduces immu­ni­ty. A per­son gets sick more often and for a longer time.

Among the psy­cho­log­i­cal con­se­quences are pro­longed depres­sion, lack of joy in life, prob­lems in rela­tion­ships with the oppo­site sex, lack of sex­u­al desire. To avoid these prob­lems, you need to adjust the sleep and rest reg­i­men in time already at the first sig­nals of exhaus­tion of the body and ner­vous sys­tem, take care of your­self.