By Katie El Tahchi | Staffwriter
As young adults, we often hear each other brag about getting very little hours of sleep, thinking we sound cool and hardworking; which is not the case. Sadly, lack of sleep has been a sort of flex lately, saying you have slept for a couple of minutes because of any reason just to prove a point is ridiculous.
Sleep is an essential part of our lives; if you sleep eight hours per day, you’d be sleeping throughout one-third of your life. Is it a bad thing? Absolutely not. An adult should get between seven to nine hours of sleep, but that may differ depending on each person’s lifestyle and age. All adults should definitely not sleep less than six hours, though, or more than ten; sleeping too few or too many hours is bad for both the physical and mental health of your body.
Bad sleep can lead to serious health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Your body needs to rest and recharge and by restraining it from doing so, you are ruining it. Sleep could be defined as a moment of restoration for your body, it is known to have an impact on your immune system as less sleep decreases the response of T cells (white blood cells) in your body. Cytokine, an immune-boosting protein, is known to be better produced during sleep, so logically, lack of sleep would lead to a decrease in its production, thus impacting your immune system and making your body more prone to getting sick.
A lot of dietitians also highlight sleep to their patients who want to lose weight, because it’s true, sleep does affect your weight. Not only does staying up for more hours mean you will be unnecessarily eating for more hours, but insomnia or sleep deprivation can affect hormones that regulate hunger and fullness. There are two major hormones for this: Ghrelin and Leptin. Ghrelin controls your appetite; Leptin sets your limit and makes sure you don’t overeat.
Irregular sleep may decrease the ability of these hormones to function, thus increasing your appetite and decreasing your boundaries. Inevitably, this will make you gain weight. Speaking of hormones, sleep deprivation can affect your entire hormonal system, making it imbalanced, and this imbalance will only lead to more sleep deprivation, creating a never-ending loop of harm to your body.
Your mood and energy could be victims of this cycle too, explaining why sleep can also impact your mental well-being. The most ‘popular’ hormone is cortisol. It is often mentioned by diet professionals and health and wellness instructors, especially on social media. “Reducing cortisol levels changed my body” they tell you while giving you ways to lower the levels, but rarely explain why it is unhealthy to have high levels of cortisol in your system. Cortisol is a hormone that affects your blood pressure and sugar levels, with its peak being at the start of the day, and gradually decreasing throughout the day. If deranged, high cortisol levels can be seen around bedtime, meaning that your blood pressure and blood sugar will be high throughout the day.
This briefly explains why sleep irregularity can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Additionally, as you lose sleep, or sleep too much, your mental and physical performance are affected. Clearly, if you don’t get enough rest, you will have poor athletic performance, but in a mental way, you will not have enough focus and energy to use your knowledge, and even experience some memory loss.
Students often stay up late or don’t sleep all day before an exam thinking they are benefiting themselves by studying more. Unfortunately, this is only harming the way they will conduct their exam. Focus will decrease, ability to remember the material, will decrease, thus giving the student a lower-than-expected outcome.
Good sleep is overlooked, especially in our generation. Few people realize how important it is and how serious it is to get your full hours of reset. Indeed, getting good and consistent sleep will improve your lifestyle, you will literally feel lighter, and more relaxed but have enough energy all at the same time. Your stress levels will decrease or impact you less than usual and your mental performance will greatly improve.
The secret to being attractive and living a long and healthy life is often searched for, when in reality it is right there in front of us: sleeping. It continuously benefits us but could also heavily impact our health in the wrong way if neglected. At the end of the day (literally), a Healthy Mind is a Healthy Body, and those two are connected to each other by a cycle in a way that if one isn’t healthy, the other will also be. The bridge between them is complex, but the main and easiest way to keep them in control is: to get enough sleep.