The quality of your sleep at night directly affects your physical and internal health and how well you feel during the day. Indecorous sleep impacts your productivity, brain and heart health, emotional balance, creativity, immune function, metabolism, appetite control, and indeed your weight. No other activity delivers so many benefits with so little effort.
Sleep is further than just a time for your body and mind to rest. In fact, while you’re asleep, your body remains active. During this time, your body rebuilds muscles you’ve worn down during the day and removes toxins in the brain that accumulate while you’re awake. It’s also essential for keeping your recollections complete.
1. Undereye Dark circles
When you don’t sleep well, the skin becomes pale, and the blood vessels become more visible, so bags appear under the eyes.
2. Increase in weight
Experts have found that people sleeping less than five hours a day gain weight much hastily and are susceptible to rotundity.
3. Lack of attention
Sleep deprivation hinders our ability to think. Besides, it also makes our memory worse. In order to save your cognitive abilities, you need to sleep for 7-8 hours a day.
4. Dull and wrinkled skin
Studies also conclude that our sleep schedule affects the quality of our skin. Not enough sleep makes the skin lose moisture making it look baggy, dry and dull.
5. Immunity system
Sleep deprivation prevents your immune system from building up its forces. If you don’t sleep enough, it may also take longer to recover from an illness.
6. Cardiovascular system
Sleep affects processes that keep your heart and blood vessels healthy, including those that affect your blood sugar, blood pressure, and inflammation levels. People who don’t sleep enough are more likely to get cardiovascular complaints.
How much sleep does one require?
Studies have been conducted to find out ideal quantum of time a person needs to sleep per day according to their age. (Source: National Sleep Foundation)
- New-borns (0 to 3 months): 14 to 17 hours of sleep
- Infants (4 to 11 months): 12 to 15 hours of sleep
- Toddlers (1 to 2 years): 11 to 14 hours of sleep
- Pre-schoolers (3 to 5 years): 10 to 13 hours of sleep
- School-age children (6 to 13 years): 9 to 11 hours of sleep
- Teenagers (14 to 17 years): 8 to 10 hours of sleep
- Young adults (18 to 25 years): 7 to 9 hours of sleep
- Adults (26 to 64 years): 7 to 9 hours of sleep
- Older adults (65 years or older): 7 to 8 hours of sleep
You may be sleep deprived if you:
- Need an alarm to wake you up on time
- Feel sluggish in the afternoon
- Press the snooze button every time
- Get sleepy during classes, lectures or meetings
- Feel sleepy even after waking up
- Don’t feel fresh enough till at least first half of the day
- Have a hard time getting out of the bed
- Feel sleepy during your leisure time
Sleep isn’t just a time when your body shuts off. While you rest, your brain stays busy, overseeing natural conservation that keeps your body handling. Since sleep is essential for numerous aspects of good health, you should make getting enough each night a high precedence.
