The importance of sleep

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that most adults get seven to eight hours of sleep for the human body to operate at its optimum performance. As we age our bodies may require more than eight hours of sleep.

Dr. Jim Horne, Britain’s leading expert in sleep science, in his article published in the Daily Mail explained that women need 20 more minutes of sleep than men because women tend to multitask and actually use more of their brain than men do. It follows that the more you use your brain during the day, the more it needs to rest while at night.

Most of us are aware of the processes our bodies go through to dispose of waste products.

This efficient machine, your body system, disposes of excess materials - food matter, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, salt and waste.

Your body systems include the kidneys, liver, lungs, rectum and sweat glands. Your nose and eyes also excrete invading dust and foreign materials.

But did you know that your brain also produces waste materials and has a separate method of disposing of it? The brains disposal of its waste products is a complicated process which is done primarily while we sleep. According to a report published by Science Mag, Dr. Herculano Houzel said metabolic waste products of neural activity are removed out of the sleeping brain at a faster rate than a brain in its awake state. During sleep a plumbing system called the glymphatic system may open, letting fluid flow rapidly through the brain. The glymphatic system helps control the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a clear liquid surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

Sleep is such an important factor in human survival that it has been used as a form or torture during interrogations. Human beings can survive longer without food or water than without sleep. Prolonged sleep deprivation attacks the deep biological functions at the core of a person’s mental and physical health. Some people can go 24 or more hours without sleep in the right circumstances, without any lasting harm other than additional “rebound” sleep. Beyond 24 hours of deprivation people suffer huge drops in cognitive functions like accurate memory, coherent speech, and social competence.

In the first phase of sleep deprivation, a person will experience unpleasant feelings of fatigue, irritability, and difficulties concentrating. The second phase creates problems with reading and clear speech, causes poor judgment, lowers body temperature, and creates a considerable increase in appetite. The third phase will lead to disorientation, visual misperceptions, apathy, severe lethargy, and social withdrawal.

Eventually, a sleep deprived person suffers hallucinations and a total break with reality.

Sleep deprivation can also manifest in the form of diseases like type 2 diabetes, which increases the risk of heart disease. With consistent sleep loss, less insulin (a hormone that regulates blood sugar) is released in the body after you eat. Meanwhile, your body secretes more stress hormones, which helps you to stay awake but makes it harder for insulin to do its job effectively.

This results in too much glucose remaining in the bloodstream, increasing your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Because sleep is required for the system to perform a host of vital regenerative functions that are critical for the maintenance of a healthy mind and body, when a person is deprived of sleep the immune system becomes unable to perform these functions. It is therefore necessary for us to cultivate and maintain healthy sleep habits.