Sleep is a vital function which supports mental and physical health, creativity, intellectual performance, safety, and longevity. Babies require as much as 17 hours of restful sleep per day while adults generally require 7 to 9 hours. People typically view sleep as a time of inactivity for the body, but that isn’t the case. As you sleep, your body is working behind the scenes to detoxify your brain, repair your heart and blood vessels, keep your immune system healthy and balance your hormones.
The Need for Sleep
It’s not surprising, then, to discover that consistent high-quality sleep can provide a host of benefits to your physical, mental and emotional well-being.
Benefits Of Sound Sleep
Here are some of far-reaching benefits of peaceful, restorative sleep:
1. Better Health: While you sleep, your brain diligently flushes out toxins which accumulate throughout the day, including proteins that are linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Blood pressure and heart rate decrease, thereby providing necessary rest to the vascular system, the tube-like vessels in your body which carry vital fluids to your organs. Quality sleep, on a continuing basis, also helps one avoid diabetes and weight gain.
2. Stronger Heart: Your heart beats about 100,000 times per day, 35 million times per year and, on average, 2.5 billion times in a lifetime. Sound sleep gives your heart a chance to rest and refresh.
Medical research indicates people with sleep difficulties are at a 50% higher risk of developing and dying of heart disease. Undisturbed sleep protects your heart from dangerous overwork.
3. Brighter Outlook: Harvard Medical School reports that insomnia can lead to depression and anxiety while quality sleep can enhance a person’s well-being.
4. Clearer Thinking: We are all familiar with the muddled thinking that follows a poor night’s sleep. Ongoing sleep deprivation creates mental fog resulting in poor concentration, slower thought processes and memory impairment. You need quality sleep to keep your mind alert for dealing with life’s challenges.
5. Better Sex Life: Medical specialists have found that sleep-deprived individuals—both men and women—suffer from a decreased sex drive. Better sleep can lead to a more active sex life.
6. More Energy: It’s no surprise to feel sluggish and tired following a poor night’s sleep. After a prolonged period of inadequate sleep, chronic fatigue sets in, impeding one’s ability and desire to be active. Quality sleep restores a person’s native energy and drive.
7. Faster Healing: Illness and injuries can make you sleepy and for good reason. Your body needs sleep for cell regeneration and to strengthen your immune system. Some doctors estimate restful sleep speeds healing time by 50%. With a strengthened immune system, one is also less susceptible to colds and other illness.
8. Safer Pregnancies: Nearly 80% of pregnant women suffer from insomnia, even if they’ve never previously had sleep troubles. To make matters worse, expectant mothers are more likely to snore than other women, further robbing them of much-needed rest. Inadequate sleep during pregnancy has been linked to low-weight babies and premature deliveries. Consistently high quality sleep helps mothers-to-be avoid such complications at birth.
9. Accelerated Learning: Studies show sound sleep helps one take in and retain information whereas sleep deficiencies impede an individual’s learning rate. Since we are continually learning new things, whether for our jobs or to check out the latest iPhone features, quality sleep makes us sharper students.
10. Reduced Accidents: Poor-quality sleep slows our reaction time, sometimes dangerously so. Sleep-deprived drivers cause approximately 100,000 traffic accidents each year, resulting in an estimated 1,500 fatalities. By contrast, when we consistently sleep well, we react with greater speed and precision, and protect not only our own lives, but the lives of others.
The Negative Impact Of Snoring On Sound Sleep
Snoring is caused by a partial obstruction in the passageway between one’s lungs and nose or mouth during sleep. For instance, while you sleep, the throat muscles relax and narrow this airway. As you breathe, air travels over the restricted passageway, causing the soft tissues to vibrate and produce the harsh sounds of snoring.
Snoring can be a sign of sleep apnea, a medical condition in which the snorer stops breathing for seconds or even minutes during sleep.
Left untreated, sleep apnea can be life-threatening. If you or your sleep partner are experiencing any of the following sleep apnea symptoms, consult with your medical doctor: loud snoring, pauses in breathing during sleep (as observed by another), waking suddenly with shortness of breath, waking with a dry mouth or sore throat, morning headaches, insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness and irritability. While most people know snoring disrupts the sleep of one’s bed partner, many do not realize it also disturbs the sleep of the snorer.
Consequently, many snorers and their partners suffer from sleep deprivation which leads to an array of maladies including poor health, depression and decreased sex drive. Treating and alleviating snoring allows people to benefit from the restorative qualities of sound, peaceful sleep.
