7 Reasons You Should Develop A Healthy Sleeping Cycle
In today’s world, juggling between career and social life is so hectic that developing a healthy sleeping cycle is becoming too difficult.
With a good number of individuals engaging in more than one economic activity to make a living, people rarely sleep enough.
Some people always have to decide on whether they should go for a late-night date, spend extended hours working in the office, or go to sleep.
Unfortunately, most of these people do not realize that sleep is more than just a time for the mind and body to shut down.
Sleep is an essential active period that your body uses to process, restore, and strengthen cells, systems, and functions.
Benefits Of Maintaining A Healthy Sleeping Cycle
Here are the main benefits you’ll get if you’re developing a healthy sleeping cycle:
1. Improved Memory
Studies have shown that getting quality sleep regularly can help improve your brain. Without adequate sleep, your brain will struggle to focus, take new information, and store memories properly to let you pull them later.
Other studies have shown that short sleep negatively impacts your brain to a similar degree as alcohol intoxication.
Therefore, irrespective of what you are going through, always let your body relax to enable your brain to catch up with what is next.
2. Mood Boost
People who sleep less tend to have mood swings. Your brain processes your emotions while you sleep, enabling you to recognize and react the right way under different circumstances.
Short sleeping cycles create more negative emotional reactions resulting in mood disorder. It is also worth noting that depression is strongly linked to sleep disorders and poor sleep quality.
Besides mood disorders, failure to get adequate sleep can trigger other negative effects like depression, panic disorders, and anxiety.
3. Reduced Risk Of Heart Disease And Stroke
Studies have shown that people who do not get adequate quality sleep tend to have a higher risk of suffering heart disease or stroke than those who sleep for about 7 to 8 hours per night.
As you sleep, your blood pressure goes down, giving your heart and blood vessels time to rest.
Unfortunately, failure to get a healthy sleeping cycle means that your heart and blood vessels will have to endure a long time maintaining your blood pressure in a 24-hour cycle.
Prolonged periods of dealing with blood pressure can make the blood vessels fail, leading to heart disease.
4. Improved Athletic Performance
Studies have shown that sleep directly affects the performance of athletes. Athletes who sleep well enjoy improved speed, reaction times, accuracy, and mental wellbeing.
An unhealthy sleeping cycle negatively affects athletes’ life resulting in functional limitation and poor exercise performance.
It is also worth noting that poor sleep has been associated with lower grip strength, slower walking, and greater difficulty performing independent activities.
5. Weight control
Poor sleeping habits have been linked to weight gain. Studies have shown that people with short sleep duration are more likely to gain weight than those who get adequate sleep.
The effect of sleep on weight gain is attributed to several factors, including motivation to exercise and hormones.
It is also worth noting that good sleepers are more likely to eat fewer calories. People with poor sleeping habits tend to experience daily fluctuations in appetite hormones resulting in poor appetite regulation.
6. Blood Sugar Maintenance
During your deep sleep, the body functionality is slowed, resulting in the drop in the amount of glucose in your blood.
A short sleep cycle does not allow your body to reset, so your body will experience difficulty responding to your blood sugar levels and your cells needs.
Experimental sleep studies have shown that restricting sleep to four hours per night for six consecutive nights causes symptoms of prediabetes.
Studies have also shown that sleeping for less than six hours per night increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.
7. Improved General Wellness
People who get adequate, quality sleep are less likely to get sick. Sleep allows your body to rest and the muscles to recover, reducing the likeliness of injuries.
Muscle growth also occurs while you sleep, which is the reason why children are encouraged to sleep longer to ensure proper growth and development.
It is also worth noting that good sleep helps to improve immune function and reduce inflammation for improved general wellness.
Therefore, you can improve your immune system just by combining your sleep with other healthy routines such as:
- Eating healthy;
- Drinking clean water at the room temperature (Tip: always fill an insulated stein water bottle with water to keep yourself hydrated all day);
- And exercising regularly.
This way you will rarely book an appointment with your doctor for health checks.
If you would like to live a fully satisfying lifestyle, you must sleep well. People who sleep well are usually healthier, happier, and successful.
Along with regular exercise and good nutrition, a healthy sleep cycle is the third pillar of your health.
