HB News Network: Why Sleep is Important

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why sleep is important

Sleep is important. It’s obvious that when we don’t get enough sleep we feel tired and groggy the next day. Even drinking an extra cup of coffee won’t necessarily adequately combat the crankiness. Doing this day after day intensifies that feeling of irritability and causes a variety of short-term and long-term health problems. Read on to learn why sleep is important.

Why Sleep Is Important

Short-term Problems

While we are sleeping our bodies get a chance to rest along with our brains. Our brain is home to our Central Nervous System; this region is responsible for making decisions and remembering information. The neurons of our Central Nervous System, or specialized cells that transmits information, require an adequate amount of rest each night. Sleep is the time when damaged neurons are repaired. Some common short-term problems that occur as a result of not getting enough shut-eye are as follows:

Mood swings: In addition to being more agitated, our anxiety increases as our sleep decreases. We become overly emotional and short-tempered. This can hurt our personal relationships.
Forgetfulness: We tend to forget even the simplest things when we are tired. With minimal sleep our performance at work or school suffers.
Decreased alertness: Sleep is important in that it allows us to react quickly. Lack of sleep not only slows down our reaction time, but it also hampers our ability to concentrate.

Long-term Problems

Our Central Nervous System may have problems due to inadequate sleep, and our cardiovascular system suffers as well. We need sleep to repair our blood cells and vessels. Essentially, we need to do this to have healthy hearts. Sleep is important so these vital systems function smoothly. Depriving our body constantly of this important healing time leads to a multitude of problems such as:

High blood pressure: By not allowing our blood cells and vessels the time to repair itself, this may result in clogged arteries. Clogged arteries leads to high blood pressure. High blood pressure can possibly lead to a heart attack down the road.
Obesity: Studies have shown that people have a tendency to gain weight when they are constantly going without sleep. Sleep is important for our minds, and it’s also vital for our bodies too.
Stroke: Those who continually sleep for less than six hours a night are more likely to get a stroke. This is true even for those who maintain a healthy weight.
Psychiatric problems: We now know that mood swings occur from lack of zzzs. This can lead to depression and other mood disorders over time.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults receive seven to nine hours of sleep each night. Not only is sleep important to our overall health, and it is nice to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to start the day. Maybe knowing why sleep is important can help you catch more Z’s!

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