Article by Prewit . P

ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP ?

Endless TV channels, Animated Video Games, Internet facilities like surfing, blogging has virtually taken away our sleep from us. To add to this misery, technological advancement never lets us disconnect from our office and we bring home all the stress with us. Ah! that reminds me, my friend & owner of this blog Mr. Srinath Achar sleeps only 3-4 hours a day! His wife is worried about his health but that hasn’t brought any changes in him. With all due respect Mr. Srinath, even we are proud and happy to see the way people responding to your blog but, that should never be the reason to jeopardize your health, quality of life and even length of your life! When we are young, the body tolerates the effects but later stages shows up physically and mentally. So, this article is purely dedicated to you and to all those “night owls” who doesn’t realize the importance of sleep.

Lets looks at 5 benefits of sleep

Live long & healthy

Heart is the engine of your body. Like any mechanical engine to perform long and consistently, you need to give periodical rest to that engine. Same way even your heart functions continuously and for longer life it needs proper rest. Your blood pressure and heart rates are at the lowest during sleep. When you don’t sleep enough your blood pressure goes up and increases the heart rate giving you hypertension. This also triggers your stress hormones and inflammations which affects your immune system. This is the reason why you are told take good rest when you fall sick; good sleep helps your immune system fight better.

Look Younger

Haven’t you come across the situation when people asked you what’s wrong; you look terrible today, the day after you don’t get good sleep? The reason is, when you don’t sleep enough, which not only gives you headaches and other physical ailments, but also changes your metabolism similar to those happens with normal aging. Who doesn’t want to look young as we get old? The secret is nothing but to simply sleep enough to trigger your growth hormones.

Sleep well and lose weight

The recent studies prove that obesity has direct link with sleep deprivation. When you sleep less, your metabolism slows down and in turn increases your appetite. Wonder how? Insufficient sleep lowers the level of hormone called leptin, which gives the signal of “feel full” and increases the levels of ghrelin, the hormone that makes you feel hungry. Also sleep loss decreases insulin sensitivity and expose you to higher risk of type-2 diabetes and make you crave for high sugar and carbohydrate food.

Build a better Brain

Sleep deprivation not only affects your physical health, but also your mental health. It affects your concentration and problem solving skills. A study says staying awake for 17-18 hours is equal to the mental state of person who has had 2-3 drinks, in an hour! Now I have realized why I used to forget many answers during my college examinations, which I had mugged sitting awake whole night!

Why should we maintain good sleeping Habits?

My cousin Nitya loves to be called as “night Owl” who sleeps late and rise late then claims to have developed good sleeping habits. No, this isn’t enough! The body follows a time schedule based on biological timings. So, all the proud “NIGHT OWLS”, please understand the importance of maintaining good sleeping habit.

5 more friendly-tips on sleep

Evening 9 pm – 11 pm is the time for eliminating (detoxification) unnecessary toxic chemicals from the antibody system. This time should be spent relaxing. It you are still working during this time, the detoxification process gets affected and gives negative impact on health.

Evening 11pm – 1 am is the time for detoxification process in liver and ideally this should be done in a deep sleep state.

Early Morning 1 am – 3 am is the time for detoxification process in the gall and this should be done in a deep sleep state.

Early Morning 3 am – 5 am is the time for lungs detoxification. At this stage, there could be occasional coughing but nothing to worry as this is a natural process and any medicine will interfere the toxin removal process.

Early Morning 5 am – 7 am is the time for detoxification in the colon and you should empty your bowel this time.

Early Morning 7 am – 9 am is the time for absorption of nutrients in small intestine. This is the time for break fast. Never skip your breakfast; it’s better to have late breakfast than skipping.

Sleeping too late and waking up too late will disrupt the process of removing unnecessary chemicals from our body. Aside from that, midnight to 4:00 am is the time when the bone marrow produces blood. Therefore, have a good sleep and don’t sleep late.

Other articles by Prewit . P

Lighten up, Practical fashion Tips, Practical Fashion Tips #2