Why Sleep is Important for Health and Productivity

Sleep is one of the essential activities that humans need to do. As living things, sleeping is important since it is a phase where our cells regenerate, get our body time to relax, and get ready for the next day’s activities. Sleeping has a lot of advantages. For instance, improving our mood, enhancing brain performance, and also physical & mental health.

Myth: We sleep so our brain will get rest before using it again tomorrow

Our brains don’t get any rest, even when we fall asleep. On the other hand, our brains are working hard but in different functions. When in sleep time, the brain will repair itself and help us to remember and create things. Moreover, they have a drainage system which is to remove toxins or waste that is not that important to be remembered.

Sleep can contribute to diseases

As I said before, sleep is a stage when our body cells regenerate. Additionally, sleep also can heal injuries and muscle problems. We can improve our health if we can have the best sleep quality. In contrast, if we have little time to sleep, chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, depression, and poor mental health can caused.

Sleep-Anxiety-Productivity

Bad quality of sleep can lead to anxiety or even worse depression. This can happen because we do not have enough serotonin levels (the neurotransmitter that carries information from nervous cells in the brain throughout our body and a hormone that affects mood, anxiety, and happiness) which have to be regulated during sleep time. Therefore, the serotonin levels can be unbalanced and affect us sleep-deprived.

On the other hand, anxiety is usually linked to productivity. Anxiety can disrupt our focus on a day and act like an obstacle to our productivity. Bad anxiety can lead us to be over-worried about anything and hard to concentrate on a task. We might waste our time and energy on it, miss the deadline, and cause poor academic or work performance.

Sleep consistency and quality

Sleep consistency with the best quality is the best thing that could happen for humans. It can improve every aspect of our life from physical and mental health to life performance, and many more. But, as we get older, it is hard to do it in real life.

A sleep researcher at the University of Colorado, Dr. Kenneth Wright, Jr. said “If you have one bad night’s sleep and take a nap, or sleep longer the next night, that can benefit you. But if you have a week’s worth of getting too little sleep, the weekend isn’t sufficient for you to catch up. That’s not a healthy behavior”

Sleep Disorders are the big obstacles

These conditions can annoy people because it makes them hard to get a good sleep. The most common sleep disorder is insomnia, when people have a hard time sleeping and/or staying asleep. This can result in us feeling tired and unproductive the next day. Insomnia can be short-term for a few weeks or months as well as long-term for three months or longer.

Another sleep disorder is sleep apnea. This disorder blocks the upper airways during sleep and reduces/stops airflow. People who have this disorder are likely to get shocked and wake up during the night. This condition should be treated because it is pretty dangerous and can lead to other health issues. Numerous effects of sleep apnea from snoring, headaches, insomnia, breathing stopping and starting, to other worse diseases like greater risk of coronary artery disease, heart attack, or premature death.

So, how we can get better sleep (based on News in Health) :

1. A sleep schedule: make a schedule in which we will go to bed and wake up at a consistent time every day, even at weekends.
2. Do exercise regularly: exercise such as long walks, swimming, or other heavy exercises at the gym also can help. Note, that we should not do it close to bedtime.
3. Go outside: get natural sunlight minimum of 30 minutes a day.
4. Do not drink nicotine & caffeine before bedtime: because it can stimulate us to stay awake.
5. Limit electronics: stop screen time at least 30 minutes before bedtime and put the devices a little farther from our bed, so we won’t get distracted to use them again. You can try reading a book, writing a journal, listening to music, etc.
6. Create a good sleeping environment: set the bedroom temperature to which you feel comfortable, reduce light, and silence your phone. Moreover, you can add candle scents or other things that can create a suitable environment to sleep.
7. Get up from bed if you still can’t sleep: if you have laid down on the bed for 20 minutes and still can not fall asleep, get up and do a relaxing activity like meditation until you feel sleepy.
8. Seek help from the experts: If you have done different ways to sleep but all of them don’t work for you, you can see the professionals who can help you and give you medication (if needed).

References :

• Good. (2021, March 29). Good Sleep for Good Health. NIH News in Health. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2021/04/good-sleep-good-health
• ‌QuiroOlivera. (2019, January 3). The cells regenerate when you sleep — quiropracticalolivera. Quiropracticalolivera. https://quiropracticalolivera.com/en/the-cells-regenerate-when-you-sleep/#:~:text=The%20cells%20regenerates%20when%20you%20sleep.&text=Sleeping%20and%20resting%20well%20allows,because%20while%20you%20are%20resting.
• ‌CDC. (2023, March 23). Sleep and Sleep Disorders. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/index.html#:~:text=Not%20getting%20enough%20sleep%20is,injury%20and%20disability%20each%20year.
• ‌Serotonin. (2023, October 16). Healthdirect.gov.au; Healthdirect Australia. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/serotonin
• ‌Why It’s Time to Ditch the Phone Before Bed. (2019). Intermountainhealthcare.org. https://intermountainhealthcare.org/blogs/why-it-is-time-to-ditch-the-phone-before-bed