Although sleep has been termed the third pillar of health after food and exercise, it is still one of health’s most underrated areas. A good night’s sleep of around seven to eight hours will do wonders for your body and your state of well being. Some of these benefits areas follows.
1. It refreshes you
Have you ever woken up from a good night’s sleep feeling that you can conquer the world? That is what proper sleep does for you. Sleep relaxes your muscles that have been worked throughout the day and repairs other tissues that were damaged, energizing and rebooting your system to take on the next day with full energy and alertness. Sleeping at least 8 hours is often recommended to those people who suffer from chronic stress.
2. It improves cognitive function
Numerous studies have shown that those people who study and then sleep before an exam or test the next day perform better in that test as compared to those people who just studied throughout the night without getting any sleep. They attribute this to the ability of the students being able to remember more and reason better.
This is kind of intuitive. When you are tired, you are not able to think things through, and hence are prone to making more mistakes. But after a good night’s sleep, everything becomes clearer for you.
3. It helps in losing weight
When you sleep at a set time regularly every night and get enough sleep, your body regulates the production of certain hormones that are responsible for appetite. Ghrelin and leptin production becomes imbalanced when you do not get enough sleep. That is why sleep deprived people tend to be hungry most of the time, and hence they eat more. Also, some people mistake fatigue or tiredness for hunger, and hence they eat, thinking they will be satisfies, not knowing that they need to sleep instead.
4. It improves sex
According to a poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, those who slept more had a better sex life on average. This is because fatigue and tiredness does not help much with sex.
5. It improves the immune system
Numerous studies have shown that those who sleep more generally have a better immune system, and hence they have a reduced risk of catching some diseases. This is because when you sleep, your body refreshes the immune system, just like many other systems in the body, releasing certain chemicals such as cytokines that are produced to fight bacteria.
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