Do you realize how important a good night’s sleep is for your health? It is just as critical as exercising and eating right. The bad news is that in our culture, our actual environment interferes with our naturally occurring sleep patterns. People sleep less now than they used to years ago, and the quality of that sleep has also decreased.
For this reason, many people turn to sleep aids. People take things like Benadryl when they can’t sleep, you get parents using Ambien when they are worn out from a full day’s work and then being parents when they are at home. Some people take natural supplements like Melatonin to get to sleep and others may even turn to alcohol.
All of that said, why is sleep so important? Let’s take a look.
Sleep and Depression
Mental health problems, like depression, have a strong link to sleeping disorders and a poor quality of sleep. Some estimates have been placed at around 90% of people suffering from depression who complain about the poor quality of their sleep. Getting poor sleep has even been linked to an increase in the risk of suicide. Those who suffer from sleep disorders like sleep apnea or insomnia have also reported much higher rates of being depressed than those who don’t suffer from those disorders.
Sleep and the Immune System
Even small losses of sleep have been linked to an impairment of immune functions. There was a large study conducted over two weeks that monitored how the common cold developed after dosing people with nasal drops that had been infected with the virus that causes colds. The results were that those who got less than 7 hours of sleep each night were as much as 3 times as likely to develop that cold than the participants who got 8 hours or more of sleep.
Sleep and Inflammation
Sleep also has a massive effect when it comes to inflammation in the body. In fact, the loss of sleep has also been known to activate such undesirable things as inflammation and cell damage. Poor sleep habits have also been linked to inflammation in the digestive tract that is long-term, such as with inflammatory bowel diseases. One study even found that people suffering from Crohn’s disease who were sleep deprived were 2 times as likely to have a relapse than those who sleep well.
Sleep and Social Interactions and Emotions
The loss of sleep actually reduces the ability you have to interact on a social level. It also has a negative impact on your stress levels, and this can even impact the health of your skin, which can then cause embarrassment and further hamper the ability to interact socially. This has been confirmed by several different studies. Researchers also believe that getting poor sleep can have a negative effect on the ability you have to recognize critical social cues and to process information on an emotional level.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, along with exercise and nutrition, good sleep is a critical pillar of good health. It just isn’t possible to achieve your best health if you neglect your sleep.
