Why Is Getting a Good Night Sleep So Important?

While most of us are unsure about the real reasons as to why our bodies require sleep, I'm sure we can all be in agreement that it helps us feel more energized, alert, happy, and healthy. It's like everything gets to reset when our eyes are closed and when we wake those "balanced effects" are felt. Today we will dive deep into why a good night's sleep is so key in a healthy routine. Just like how a good meal is made up of different kinds of food, a good night requires different kinds of sleep.

THE 6 STAGES OF SLEEP

A good night's sleep consists of 6 different stages, they are rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM sleep. Non-REM sleep can be further broken down into four different stages based on the type of activity in the brain. The first four stages make up our non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and the fifth & sixth stage is when rapid eye movement (REM) sleep occurs. As the night progresses your body transitions from lighter to deeper sleep and back again over and over, about every 90 minutes or so.

THE IMMUNE SYSTEM & HORMONAL RELEASE

Even a small loss of sleep has been shown to impair immune function [1]. One large 2-week study monitored the development of the common cold after giving people nasal drops with the cold virus. They determined that those with 7 or fewer hours of sleep had a 2.94 times greater risk of getting a common cold than those who had slept 8 or more hours. Although 2.94% does not seem like a large number, remember that these real-world values add up over days, months, and even years to pose a much greater health risk.

Some studies display the effects of animals deprived entirely of sleep resulting in loss of all immune function causing death in a matter of weeks. This is further supported by findings that many of the major restorative functions in the body like muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and growth hormone release, occur mostly, or in some cases only, during sleep.

WEIGHT GAIN

Poor or not enough sleep is strongly linked to higher amounts of unhealthy body weight and obesity. For example in the Nurses’ Health Study, researchers followed roughly 60,000 women for 16 years, tracking their weight, sleep habits, diet, and other aspects of their lifestyle. At the start of the study, all of the women were healthy, and none were obese. 16 years later, women who slept 5 hours or less per night had a 15 percent higher risk of becoming obese, compared to those who slept 7 hours per night. Short sleepers also had a 30 percent higher risk of gaining 30 pounds over the course of the study[2]. One of the biggest factors that link weight loss and sleep is the fact that our bodies tend to burn a surplus of calories when we are asleep. The increase in hormonal secretion puts our body's metabolic functions into overdrive and allows it to continue burning calories all through the night. This beneficial secretion of hormones also allows for correct regulation of hormonal balance for the day to come. Why this is important is because if we get no sleep our hormones cannot correctly carry out a function or do so in an unorganized manner, the ones we want less of and the ones we want more of are reversed. As a result, causing weight gain and less efficient metabolic & cellular health overall.

CONCENTRATION & PRODUCTIVITY

Sleep loss causes profound impairments in cognitive and behavioral performance. For example, in a prospective, randomized study looking at the effects of sleep deprivation in residency training, interns working a “traditional schedule” made 36% more serious medical errors when compared with interns under an “intervention schedule” that included more sleep [3]. It is reported that some substances such as modafinil or more traditional stimulants (including caffeine) are effective to overcome the cognitive and behavioral detriments resulting from sleep loss. They do this by limiting the amount of adenosine (a central nervous system depressant) in the brain which is thought to collet throughout a day. This collection, as a result, promotes sleep so limiting the collection prevents those drowsy effects.

CHRONIC INFLAMMATION

Sleep has a very real effect on inflammation in the body. When you have chronic inflammation, your body’s inflammatory response can eventually start damaging healthy cells, tissues, and organs. Over time, this can lead to DNA damage, tissue death, and internal scarring as well as the development of diseases (Ie. Cancer, Asthma, Heart Disease, Diabetes, etc). Several research studies support the associations among sleep, immune function, and inflammation. The onset of sleep corresponds with an increase in the serum levels of some cytokines (small proteins involved in cell signaling), peaking at 2.5 hours after sleep onset. This surge of cytokines and their pro-inflammatory effects are suggested to be linked with nocturnal exacerbations of diseases like asthma and rheumatoid arthritis [4].

In humans, long-term sleep deprivation was shown to increase the risk of septicemia (or poisoning due to bacteria in the blood). Furthermore, decreased sleep has been linked to impaired antibody response to hepatitis A vaccine, influenza, and increased risk of getting an upper respiratory infection. The timing of sleep is also important because most immune cells have their highest response to immune challenges during the night and their lowest response in the morning [5].

At the end of the day, the most important thing to take away from this collection of information is that a good night's sleep of 7+ hours is of paramount importance. If you want to be the healthiest, happiest, and most cognitively alert person you can be, do not take sleep for granted.

Once again, I thank you for taking the time out of your day to add to mine by reading this. You are AMAZING and appreciated!!!

~STRIATIONS Fitness