Sleep is essential for our Health and Longevity

Learning about how sleep is essential for our health and longevity has been an eye opener for me. Especially as I’m one that averages 5 to 6 hours sleep a night, and the recommended number of hours of sleep is between 7-9 hours. However I’m lucky that I don’t have trouble sleeping. I just like to pack as much as I can into my day. I try to get to bed by 1am, and my alarm is set for 7am, which gives me time to do my morning routine before work,

At some point in our lives we have all experienced the effects of a bad nights sleep, mood swings, grogginess, lack of energy, lack of concentration, and forgetfulness, just to name a few. However, long term sleep depravation can have a damaging effect on our health. Studies show poor sleep puts you at risk of developing various medical conditions such as obesity, diabetes and heart conditions. It can also shorten life expectancy. Getting a good nights sleep is essential for health and longevity.

How Poor Sleep can affect our Health

Let’s look at why Poor sleep is linked to the following conditions:

• Weight gain – People who get less sleep tend to be more hungry and have more cravings. I know this is definitely the case with me, I usually crave my comfort foods, chocolate and crisps.
• Poor hormonal balance – This relates to the above. Your hunger (ghrelin) and fat storage (leptin) hormones become out of sync.
• Weaken immune – When you are exposed to viruses or bacteria your body finds it harder to fight them off.
• Mood swings – You are more agitated and impatient, leading to anxiety. Long term poor sleep can increase risk of psychological disorders such as depression or bipolar.
• Forgetfulness – During sleep, our brain is doing it’s work , forming new connections, and sorting our long and short term memories. With poor sleep our brain cannot process more information, as a result it impairs our memory.
• Brain fog – Tiredness causes lack of focus and concentration, and affects your ability to think and problem solve. Also it can increase the risk of accidents.
• Age quicker – When we sleep our body heals and repairs itself by producing more human growth hormone and renews our skin, hence the term “beauty sleep”. However poor sleep disrupts this process.
• Can lead to increased blood pressure, blood sugar and inflammation levels and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
• Affects our quality of life – Lack of energy makes us less likely to participate in daily activities.

So as you can see from this list, poor sleep is detrimental to our health .

The Benefits of a good night sleep

After seeing how poor sleep affects our health, the benefits of a good nights sleep are as follows:

• Helps you maintain a healthy weight – good hormonal balance reduces cravings.
• More Energy – will result in being more active.
• Strengthen your immune system – Reduces risk of developing certain health conditions
• Sleep is good for brain health. During sleep our brain forms new neural pathways which promote learning, problem solving and memory.
• Reduces stress, good for wellbeing.
• Better concentration, productivity and performance.

Maybe I need to think about how I can increase my hours sleep without compromising on my morning routine, which is a non-negotiable as it sets me up for the day.

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“We need less sleep as we age” – Is it a myth?

According to Matthew Walker “Why We Sleep” and numerous other published studies, the belief that “we need less sleep as we age” is a myth. Let me explain why we may think that:

1. The fact that more older adults are more likely to be taking certain medications that have a side affect that affects their restorative sleep. Also older adults are more likely to possess medical conditions that may affect their sleep.
2. As we go from young adults to older adults we may experience more fragmented sleep due to toilet calls or less deep sleep, so we wake up more often through the night.
3. A change in our circadian rhythm. Older adults experience earlier release of melatonin. Melatonin is the hormone that regulates our sleep cycle. Our sleep cycle tends to regress as we get older, we should be going sleep earlier and waking up earlier. Instead we still go sleep at the same time but wake up earlier so it feels like we need less sleep.

Older adults in fact still need just as much sleep as young adults.

How to sleep better for Health and Longevity?

If you do have trouble sleeping here are a few sleep hacks.

1. Making sure you get enough sleep, 7-9 hours.
2. Wake up and go sleep consistently at the same time.
3. Avoid phone and social media time at least an hour before bed.
4. Avoid alcohol.
5. Keep the bedroom for sleep and sex.
6. Exercise is great, at least 2 to 3 hours before bed.
7. Don’t take naps after 3pm.
8. Don’t eat too close to bedtime.
9. Chill and relax before bed.

Want to start introducing some good habits for better sleep and don’t know how to start, refer to to my post “Personal Lifestyle Choices”.

To Summarise

Sleep is very underrated. The benefits of sleep heavily support our health and longevity. As you can see our bodies need sleep to function at its best and is essential for our well being. Sleep is often labelled as a lazy past time, however the benefits here show that there is a lot to be gained from getting more Zzzzzzs.

I will be looking at increasing my daily hours of sleep bit by bit. How’s your sleeping pattern?

Keep living agelessly,

Kath