Last week on 21st of June, we were celebrating the day of sleep. This day was initiated in 2000 by the association “day of sleep” to call attention to the importance of sleep. After all, according to studies every third person is suffering under sleep disturbances.
Due to frequently growing inner and outer influences, the number of those who have more and more frequent problems to keep their vital energies balanced significantly increases. Here, healthy sleep is having an important role besides healthy nutrition and sufficient exercise. Bad sleep is influencing all levels of our life – most severely it is has an influence on our performance, health and mental fitness. Specialists assume that one main reason for sleep disturbances is the lacking acceptance of the importance of sleep. In the western performance oriented society, sleep is considered to be unproductive and “a waste of time”. Furthermore, the development moves towards a sleepless society. Service facilities are open around the clock – and this has an effect on sleep. During the day, some people sleep during short breaks. Some companies enable their staff to take a short power nap during lunch-break. In Japan, for example, some companies provide beds for people with a need for sleep.
Have you ever thought about your sleeping behavior? Is sleep for you a necessary evil or do you enjoy sleeping and the benefits you get from sufficient and restful sleep? This time of the year with long days and short nights is perfect for thinking about your personal sleeping habits!
The sleeping third
On an average, we are sleeping one third of our life. Meaning, when becoming 75 years, we’ve slept 25 years in total! And – not only at the day of sleep, no, every time we sleep there are happening many important things in our body. One of the most important relationships seem to be the one to the brain. Examinations show that sleep is playing a decisive role for our intelligence. On the one hand, emotional things are processed during REM-sleep. On the other hand different processes (including regeneration) happen during sleep.
Sleep duration
How much sleep a human being needs is individually different. It is said that Napoleon, for example, only slept four hours, Thomas A. Edison even only two hours. But, there are long sleepers, as well: Albert Einstein needed 12 hours of sleep to feel well rested. No question, the need for sleep changes when getting older: babies need about 16 hours of sleep, elderlies often only six hours.
Deep and sufficient sleep is one of the most important things in our life. But, with more and more people the night turns into the day. A recent study revealed that sleep duration as well as sleep depth are decreasing. Many of our modern problems clearly are due to lack of sleep and lack of sleeping quality. Most students and working people accumulate a sleeping debt of a couple of hours per week. Furthermore, the sleep no longer is efficient. Often, we spend eight hours in bed, but only sleep six or seven. It is easily understandable that this is negatively influencing body and soul.
To find out the effects of good sleep on our performance we take a look at athletes. The finding of different studies are clear: Athletes with a good and sufficient sleep are measurably more effective and in a better mood. Furthermore, healthy, restful sleep is significantly preventing health disturbances and diseases. Beginning with cardiovascular diseases, heart attacks, diabetes type II via metabolic diseases up to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson and cancer.
Receive further information at no charge in the sleep-healthy-guidebook “sleep yourself young, fit and successful”.
Image Source: @fotolia
This post is also available in / Diesen Beitrag gibt es auch in:
German
Leave a Reply