What Your Body Does When You Sleep?

Besides eating healthy and exercising regularly, good sleep is essential to lead a healthy life. The duration and quality of sleep play a vital role. There are many reasons why good sleep plays a crucial role in our healthy lifestyle.

Poor Sleep Leads To Being Overweight

A poor sleep pattern is strongly related to gaining weight—short sleep duration results in obesity. Poor sleep patterns result in many hormonal changes that lead to gaining weight. You Eat Fewer

Calories After A Good Sleep

Sleep deprivation leads to an enormous appetite and increases the appetite hormones that make you feel hungry all the time.

Good Sleep Increases Concentration

The brain function enhances after a good sleep. Your concentration, cognition, and productivity increase manifold. After a good sleep, you improve your problem-solving skills and improves your memory and performance.

Good Sleep Improves Athletes Performance

A good sleep pattern enhances the speed, accuracy, and reaction time required for an athlete. Poor sleep leads to slower motion, lower strength, and great difficulty in physical performance.

Higher Risk Of Heart Diseases

Sleep deprivation has a significant relation to significant health risks. It is believed that poor sleep increases the chances of chronic heart diseases and stroke. Sleeping less than seven to eight hours is risky for your health.

Sleep Affects Your Blood Sugar Level

Sleep restrictions affect blood sugar levels and reduce insulin sensitivity. Those who restrict sleep to less than six hours a day show an increased risk of type two diabetes.

Poor Sleep Leads To Depression

Sleeping disorders and quality lead to mental health issues like depression. Sleeping disorders like insomnia lead to significantly higher risks of falling into depression.

Good Sleep Is Proportional To Good Immunity

Good sleep is directly proportional to a sound immunity system. Getting good quality sleep helps you fight diseases like the common cold and improve the body’s immune function.

Sleep Quality Affects Your Social Interactions

The loss of sleep affects your emotions strongly. It reduces the social skills and your ability to recognize the feelings of the people you interact with.

How Does The Sleep Cycle Work During The Night?

Every sleep cycle has about four sleep stages. These stages are rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement sleep. It starts with the body dozing off and slipping into sleep. Next, the mind slows down as you enter the second stage.

The nest stage is deep sleep, where the recovery mode of the body begins. Brain activity is prolonged in this stage. The next step encounters REM sleep. Here, brain activity increases and is almost the same as being awake because this is the stage of experiencing intense dreams. Each sleep cycle lasts about 80-120 minutes. The study of these sleep cycles is sleep architecture.

What Happens To Your Body And Brain During Sleep?

All the parts of your body will experience a change while you sleep. The brain signals all the organs that you have slept. The immune and cardiovascular systems get reinforced, and the metabolism is regulated. Here are some effects on the body while you sleep.

Breathing – The body’s breathing slows down as you fall asleep. In the non-REM cycle of sleep, respiration is the lowest. Breathing again catches pace as the body experiences the REM sleep stage.

Heart Rate – The heart rate also slows down when you doze off. It reaches the lowest when you are in a deep sleep. Once the body encounters REM sleep, the heart rate increases again and gets the same level as when awake.

Impact on Muscles – Once you doze off, the muscles begin to go into non-REM sleep. The energy spent is almost zero. But the eye and respiratory muscles are still active.

Brain Function – The brain waves change their pattern in different sleep stages. While you experience non-REM sleep, the brain function slows down; however, it accelerates again in REM sleep due to vivid dreaming. It enhances cognitive abilities and memory consolidation.

Dreams – Everyone experiences dreaming during REM sleep. Some may even dream during non-REM sleep, but the REM dreams will be more vivid, fanciful, or bizarre.

Hormone Secretion – Sleep regulates the secretion of numerous hormones in the body. Melatonin is the hormone that helps to sleep. The growth hormone is secreted to promote muscle and bone development and improve metabolism. Cortisol hormone releases to help stress management. The levels fluctuate with sleep stages. 

What Happens If You Face Problems In Sleeping?

People who have insomnia face difficulty in falling asleep and get insufficient sleep. It results in not getting proper rest that adversely affects thinking power and mood. As a result, brain activity is disturbed and may lead to problems like depression and anxiety. 

What Happens While You Sleep Longer?

Sleeping way longer is termed Hypersomnia. It restricts brain activities and also disturbs metabolism. 

How Much Sleep Is Needed?

It may be different for different people, but a baby, up to three months of age, generally needs about 15-17 hours of sleep. Once they grow and reach 2-4 years, they need about 12 hours of sleep. A 6-12-year-old may need about 9-11 hours of sleep. Once you grow older, the time required decreases. For example, 18-year-olds need about 8 hours of sleep, while adults may need about 6-7 hours. Lack of sleep may result in mood swings, depression, anxiety, poor memory, lack of concentration, disturbed motor function, weak immune system, fatigue, weight gain, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and an increased risk of early death.

Conclusion

Sleep is vital to keep the body functioning well. Usually, inadequate sleep will lead to poor memory, concentration, a weak immune system, and more chronic diseases. Therefore, it is a must to get a good sleep at night and improve the quality of the life you lead.