Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

You need him. You never get tired of it. And once you find out what the positive - or negative - effects of sleep are on your health, you will try to make the most of it.

As you strive to devote as much time as possible to your job, your children, your family, your friends, and your successful TV series, you forget that you still need to sleep. You set the alarm too early, and in the evening you drink an energizer that will keep you awake until late. Here are the problems: if you don't sleep, you get sick.

Experts say that most of us need about eight hours of sleep a night. But who sleeps so much? Over 80% of working women say they are exhausted. Here's what can happen if you sleep less than eight hours a night:

• If you sleep an hour or two less than necessary at night, your brain will not function properly.

• Insufficient sleep is associated with diseases such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes - not to mention early death.

• Lack of sleep can cause depression, infertility, and miscarriage.

In addition, the fact that you want to get some sleep to do as many things as possible in one day does not always work. The reality is that you will work slower than usual and you will achieve less.

And there is no substitute for sleep. Scientists have not been able to find out all the functions of sleep, but it is known that you need it as you need food or water.

It also allows your body to have a normal temperature and fight infections. If you take a look inside your body while you sleep, you will notice how much it rejuvenates you and why you should not neglect it.

Do you feel tired...

Let's see how you feel after a busy and tiring day. At 9.30 you are already in bed, alone, with a cup of tea and a magazine that you want to browse. When you start to make no difference between the lines, you realize that you are sleepy and turn off the light.

At this point you have a substance in your blood called adenosine, which is created whenever your body is awake. During the day you think, talk, have a lot of other activities, adenosine builds up, and your brain knows it's time to sleep.

If you drink coffee at this time, you will stay awake because the caffeine in combination with adenosine will prevent fatigue from reaching the brain.

...but you can't fall asleep

If it takes you more than two hours to fall asleep, it means you are too tired. After you fall asleep, your brain works slower. This is the first step. After about an hour you will sleep peacefully, and this condition will last half the night but will not last continuously.

This is step two. After 15-20 minutes you will enter the third stage, which is also the most fortifying. Now you have the most peaceful sleep, after which everything changes. Your brain becomes as active as when you are awake. But, of course, you're not awake.

This is the phase in which you dream the most. Your eyes throb and your limb muscles are paralyzed.

Researchers believe that this inertia during sleep prevents you from acting while dreaming. Now begins the next stage, when you will sleep soundly or, conversely, you will have a light sleep. Sleep is vital. Rats can normally live for two years, but if they don't sleep, they die in three weeks.

If you stay awake for twenty-four hours, you will begin to feel the effects of lack of sleep. And if you've been doing various things until late in the night, the effect will be the same.

Even if you imagine that you will manage with only six hours a night, you will only be able to overcome it. If you sleep less than eight hours a night for two weeks, you will lose your endurance, become depressed and restless.

Lack of sleep will slow down your reflexes, memory, judgment, and mental acuity. Sleepy people, on the other hand, will find it harder to realize that they are affected by lack of sleep. Fortunately, sleep can be restored. If you are very tired you will sleep more and you will recover.

But do not try to recover lost sleep in small doses (sleep needs vary from person to person) because chronic fatigue is difficult to cure.

The effects of sleep deprivation

Around three o'clock in the morning, a noise wakes you up. You try to wake up and realize what happened, you wake up but sleep is delayed because a lot of thoughts start to cross your mind.

An hour later you look so I don't know what time it is and you start to feel the tension. Insufficient sleep makes you irritable and is a risk factor for heart disease and diabetes. Also, lack of sleep affects your immune system and you are prone to colds and flu.

In addition, there is a risk of gaining weight if you sleep less than seven hours a night.

But what happens if you are menstruating? Your body produces less progesterone, a reproductive hormone that causes you to fall asleep. But during this time, you will find it harder to fall asleep. If you have such problems every month, seek medical advice.

Are you a morning person?

The last hours of sleep, just before the alarm goes off, are very important to you. Your brain repeats everything you did the day before. And sleeping will help you remember as many new things as possible. Seven o'clock. The alarm sounds.

You have never been a morning person and you realize that your preference for sleep is genetics. Animals have a biological clock that tells them when to eat, when to sleep when to mate, and when to migrate. In humans, sleep occurs when a hormone called melatonin is released.

At least ten sleep genes have recently been discovered, genes that differ from person to person. Some people are kind in the morning, others prefer to sleep late.

Now that you've taken a shower, you're feeling unusually lively. You haven't felt so rested in a long time. You are full of energy and ready for the day to come.

You think you should sleep more, but at the same time, you have so much to do that ... Still, your health is more important than anything.