Have you ever wondered what sleep does to your body, or are you one of those people who believe that “sleep is overrated”? Today’s world is hectic, and technology has managed to find a way of connecting us now more than ever. Incredible, isn’t it? Unfortunately, this tends to mean that responsibilities will be with us even more closely than before. Sleep is something that can be easily taken for granted. Worse still, one fatality of this 21st-century luxury is “adequate sleep.”
Aristotle explored the concept of sleep and wrote about it in “On sleep and sleepiness.” Aristotle claims that falling asleep implicates the digestion of food particles, which generate vapors that rise from the stomach and are stored up in the brain, causing sleep to begin. Some schools of thought in the 18th and 19th centuries held that sleep was caused by inadequate oxygen to the brain or that it was caused by an excess of blood in the brain. Sleep was initially thought to be a passive state, but the development of the Electroencephalogram (EEG) by Hans Berger in the late 1920s proved otherwise. This indicates that sleep plays a significant role in our bodies and their functions and directly impacts our body composition. It’s a time when our minds and bodies rest, and it’s essential for our overall health. And, combined with a lack of sleep, this will almost certainly lead to severe problems.
Sleeping has many health benefits, including strengthening the immune system, improving the heart, cognitive functioning, and increasing exercise performance. You must practice getting a whole night’s sleep if you want to be healthy. Because when your body gets enough sleep, it gives your immune cells and proteins the rest they require to fight off whatever comes their way. Moreover, according to Roy Kohler, MD, a sleep medicine specialist at SCL Health in Montana, consistent sleep of seven hours a night is recommended for adults just for daytime functioning. It includes being on task, alert for the day, concentrating, and not being so moody and tired during the day. While, sleep deprivation can harm your body composition and overall health, making you more susceptible to serious medical conditions such as obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure (hypertension), and diabetes. It also inhibits muscle growth. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body can’t perform many of the functions it needs to regulate properly. And it can lead to a variety of health problems. Short-term sleep deprivation can impair memory and learning ability, increase your risk of dangerous accidents, and impair judgment.
It is fantastic that we enjoy life to the fullest and that the world progresses each day. Yet, we become so distracted and blinded to what the world offers that we tend to take our health for granted. The point is, if you want to be healthy, get enough sleep! True success is achieved by not jeopardizing one’s health, and sleep is not overrated. In other words, if you want to improve your body composition and lose weight efficiently without going hungry or trying too hard, consider getting enough quality sleep each night!
