Sleep
Some risk factors toward our health are well-known and are constantly advertised: smoking can cause lung disease, UV exposure can cause skin disease, processed foods can cause colon complications. Because of widespread efforts to maintain awareness, smoking has decreased over the years, people now are using more sunscreen, and more people are opting for healthier food options. In addition to all of these health habits, a proper sleep regimen has always been stressed for maintaining a well functional body. However, this aspect of our health is often overshadowed or disregarded. People today focus heavily on their careers, education, family, and social life, and thus they feel too busy to prioritize their sleep. In addition, there are other factors that contribute to the lack of sleep including insomnia, chronic sleep deprivation, side effects from medication and other medical conditions. Many times this results in the lack of a strict sleep habit. Students stay up for long periods of time, relying on wakeful supplements such as coffee, in order to complete their work. Even doctors themselves have long shifts, overnight operations, and emergencies they attend to which requires the postponement of sleep. Americans today seem to understand the outcomes of sleep deprivation but do not really follow them in their day to day lives. Why is sleep important? What happens when people do not sleep? What happens in the body during sleep?
Sleep is a full-body experience. A majority of the body will relax and move at slower paces. This majority includes organs and systems. For example, the stomach will not secrete as many digestive enzymes during sleep compared to the body when it is awake. Sleep gives time for the body to recover from day to day physical and emotional stresses. It also gives the body a break from working at high speeds for hours. The main goal of sleep is repair, regulate, and cleanse.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average adult (aged 18-64) requires 7-9 hours of sleep daily. This famous 7-9 hours has been stressed everywhere, from doctors’ offices, to school campuses, and even billboards. But why is this stressed so much? Sleep is important for one’s health, focus, and mental wellbeing. A lack of sleep equates to lack of concentration, aches and pains, and increases risks involved with performance-based activities such as driving. In addition, people who are sleep deprived will have problems with memorization and analytical skills, meaning that pulling all-nighters isn’t really a habit conducive to better learning. Sleep deprivation elevates the chances of a person becoming obese, developing heart disease, having lower immunity health, and lower life expectancies. Sleep deprived people are also more likely to be stressed, depressed, anxious, and other negative mental aspects including addiction. A constant habit of neglecting sleep can also lead to several sleep disorders including insomnia.
If sleep is so important, what are the factors that lead to sleep deprivation and why is it a growing problem? There are few large factors that contribute to sleep deprivation. This includes life choices, life commitments, certain medications, and medical conditions (both mental and physical). Sometimes people choose to lose sleep for unnecessary reasons: watching an extra episode on Netflix, for example, or playing video games throughout the night. Such a lifestyle leads to sleep deprivation as these people more than likely have commitments during the day time. Life commitments can lead to constant lack of sleep. Such commitments include certain careers and student life. People who work overnight shifts (i.e. police officers, physicians and nurses at hospitals and emergency centers, etc.), students with heavy workloads, and people who have multiple commitments are more likely to be sleep deprived as they give up their sleep to complete what is required of them.
In addition to lifestyle, certain medications and medical conditions may lead to the loss of sleep. Escitalopram, for example, is an antidepressant that may have unintended side effects involving insomnia or sleeplessness. People who suffer from anxiety, insomnia, sleep apnea, and other mood or sleep disorders are prone to suffer from sleep deprivation. In such cases, certain medications can ease symptoms. Even supplements such as melatonin have been known to solve minor bouts of sleeplessness.
We hear the phrase “I’m tired” almost daily. And even though tiredness is normalized in our modern, fast-paced culture, it is truly a difficult thing to endure. Sleeping is essential for the body to repair small damages from the day, to regulate the bodily systems, and to cleanse waste and toxins accumulated during the day. Your body is truly becoming refreshed. We must, as a society, cease flippant disregard for the importance of sleep, and prioritize healthy sleeping habits for healthier lifestyles all-around.
References:
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/sleep-deprivation-and-deficiency
https://www.healthline.com/health/sleeping-difficulty#causes
