Although my topic suggests something emotional, this article is not about anything like that. This is about how to manage some of the contented hours we spend every day in a more effective manner. Busy people are not much interested in those. Most of the time lazy people would admit them as the happiest hours. However, those hours are the most indispensable for our good health.
Let us assume you are listening to a lecture and you feel you missed some parts and don’t understand some parts. Or let us assume you are driving. You have driven somewhere during your journey but you don’t remember that. Nothing to panic! If you have ever experienced such incidents, you have not had a complete sleep last night for sure. So, without beating around the bush I’ll come to my subject.
Our happiest hours are sleeping hours! Except for the ones with busy routines almost all others love to sleep. When we have nothing to do or feel lazy to do anything we jump on to the bed and have a nap. Waking up in the morning is too hard for most people because sleep is dearer to them.
Although sleeping seems to be a kind of time-wasting activity, it is a very important part of our daily routine. During sleep, our brain is preparing for the next day. In children, sleep is essential for growth and development and even for studies. Sleep improves your problem-solving skills and helps you pay attention to. Sleep is needed for the repairing of heart and blood vessels and to maintain the balance of hormones and enzymes. Lack of sleep will lead to so many health problems like heart diseases, diabetes, obesity or might even lead to death. It weakens your immune system. It will lead to microsleep during the day time for which I mentioned the lecture and driving example in the beginning. You will feel depressed, angry and lack the motivation to do the daily activities. You will make more mistakes in studies. Some road accidents even can be listed under the effects of sleep deficiency.
Therefore, skipping sleeping hours is seriously injurious to health. However, sleeping without a clear routine does not mean that you have obtained a good sleep. For example, if you are sleeping in the day time and reducing the amount you sleep in the night, it cannot be considered to be a healthy sleep. So, although we love to sleep we must be careful about our sleep routine as well. Let’s see how we should maintain a faultless sleep diary.
We all have something called the natural clock in our body designed to repeat in a 24-hour repeating rhythm. It has a time for us to go to sleep and to wake up. It is created by various hormonal changes in the body. This natural clock changes with age. This is the reason why newborn babies tend to sleep more and earlier while teens tend to sleep late.
According to the healthy rules adults need a continuous sleep of at least 8 hours. There can be several ways how these 8 hours are disturbed. Those with very busy routines, involving in more than one job and having loads of work to be done have no time to sleep. They even tend to use medicines to stay awake which makes the case more severe. On the other hand, some people involve in occupations with shifts in time to work. As a result, their natural clock becomes solemnly disturbed which will lead to harmful health outcomes. Some people suffer from sleep disorders which prevent them from getting sufficient sleep. Apart from such unsolvable problems, there are other reasons where people fall into trouble by purpose like getting poor sleep during the night due to heavy sleep during the day time. So, the following strategies may be helpful to improve our sleep.
Try to have a fixed time to go to bed and to wake up. Do not change that time even at the weekends. Avoid too much noise and bright light during the hour before bed. Specially using the phone or watching TV will lose your interest in sleep. Avoid having large meals for dinner and also avoid caffeinated coffee, tea, chocolates before the bed. Those would take your sleep away. Keep your bedroom quite, cool and dark. Have a hot bath before bed? Those with sleep disorders must seek the advice of a doctor. Shift workers must increase the time of sleeping and when sleeping during the daytime their room should be quiet and dark. During working hours using a bright light will avoid the stimulation of the body to sleep. Those who have lost interest in sleep can follow the aforementioned tips.
However, oversleeping is also harmful to health. It may lead to headaches, obesity, diabetes, back pain, depression and make you lazy. Adults must not have naps of more than 20 minutes. So, keep in mind not to getting into the habit of sleeping too much.
Thus, we see, proper management of sleeping hours is vital for good health and it affects all our daily activities. So, try to keep a faultless sleeping diary on behalf of your present and your future.
References: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/sleep-deprivation-and-deficiency
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