Sleep and its Importance for a Healthy Life

Am I the only one that wants to take advantage of the summer and make the days longer than they really are? I'm afraid to waste my hours sleeping, doing this repeatedly caused me to feel sluggish and tired. This caused me to reconsider the importance of sleep in my daily routine.
This is why I reconsidered the importance of the sleep in my daily routine.

Making sleep a priority in my life was not easy but knowing its importance helped me a lot. This is what I found while researching about the importance of sleep. I hope it will help you as well.

The basics of sleep:

• When you sleep, your body goes through alternating patterns of REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-rapid eye movement). This cycle repeats itself about every 90 minutes.


• During NREM, the onset of sleep begins and is evident by regular breathing and a drop in body temperature. Slowly, blood pressure drops, muscles are increasingly relaxed, tissue and growth occurs, and energy is restored. Hormones (such as the Growth Hormone) are released to promote growth and development.
  After about 90 minutes of sleep, your body enters REM which provides energy to your brain, support for day time performance, and complete rejuvenation.


• Restless sleep interrupts these cycles and interferes with the body’s natural process of healing, restoring, and rebuilding.

Facts about sleep:

1. Sleep is a more active process than you may think. It’s a time for the brain-as well as the rest of the body-to repair, grow, and develop.
2. Did you know that consistently missing just one hour of sleep can disrupt metabolism, increase body fat, and blunt important hormones involved in recovery? (1)
3. Researchers found that not getting a good night’s sleep reduces the amount of fat you burn in a day by over 50 percent (1).
4. Poor sleep, coupled with exhausting exercise and sleepiness, can lead to a lack of motivation, food cravings, and poor training results.
5. During sleep, the highest amounts of growth hormone are released to rebuild and recover the body, while the stress hormone cortisol decreases to its lowest level (2)
6. However, in sleep that is even mildly restricted, studies show athletes have increased levels of perceived exertion and decreased insulin sensitivity (3).
7. Sleep may also help slow the aging process. Telomeres, the end-caps on DNA strands that protect it from damage, appear to be shorter and thus less protective in those who have difficulty catching Z’s. In the Journal of Aging Research, scientists found that women who reported poorer quality sleep had significantly shorter telomeres, indicating a higher risk for age-related disease (4).
8. Melatonin helps to reset the body’s sleep-wake cycle and improve the overall quality of sleep. Contrary to what many believe, if melatonin is taken properly it does not act as a pharmaceutical sedative and will not induce a "hangover" effect in the morning.
9. The scientists found that melatonin significantly reduced exercise-induced stress by increasing antioxidant enzyme concentrations.
10. Generally, an adult should sleep 7-9 hours on a consistent basis. But few actually get that much quality sleep. According to the National Center on Sleep Disorders, 90 million people have difficulty sleeping which can greatly affect health and wellness and promote the development of chronic disease and accelerated aging.

Take control of the sleep routine:

1. Learn: If you are determined to get in charge of your daily sleep routine, here is a Podcast that can help you. Listen in as Dr. Colgan, an expert in sleep and brain health, shares the science behind sleep and how a lack of it disrupts fat burning, accelerates aging, and more.
2. Get help: To avoid tiredness through the day, make your sleep a priority and get the recommended amount each night. Isagenix Brain and Sleep Support System can help by increasing natural sleep time, resetting the body’s sleep-wake cycle, and promoting healthy aging of the brain.
3. Establish practical steps: build a sleep routine; decide your bedtime hour; no electronics before bed; no difficult to digest food before bedtime; and any other steps you consider important for yourself.

Have a good sleep and a healthy life!

Resources:
      www.isagenixhealth.net/sleep-well-age-well
      www.isagenixhealth.net/are-you-making-sleep-a-priority