As the name suggests, we cannot survive without sleep. Nobody can go without sleep for long time. Sleep is the main starting subject in many publications. Because this topic is very comprehensive, we will focus on the most important information today, and later we will return to this subject.
Let’s look at sleep from the beginning.
As a baby we sleep almost 75% of the day. Over time, our need for sleep diminishes and we only require 7-9 hours. If we reduce the amount of sleep to 4-6 hours per day, it will have a profound effect on our physical condition caused by diminished muscle regeneration, it may affect our cognitive functions (attention, memory, readiness,..), it can affect the production of hormones and other substances that can cause us to have an increased appetite resulting in weight gain. Lastly, it also affects our immune system’s function. Now we have talked about the length of sleep, but it is also important to mention the quality of sleep we get. Many things interfere with the quality of sleep, for instance blue light (e. g. TV, mobile phones,..), room temperature, caffeine & alcohol intake and late meals.
Next time, we will look at how to improve our sleep and we learn how cooperation between sleep and our immune system is linked.
Thank you for your time and we hope that you liked our short educational article. ❤