we spend 1/3 of our life sleeping the following blog will discuss why sleep is important. what do we know about the biology of sleep? and what are some of the common sleep disorders? we hope that you will have a better understanding of the benefits of sleep and how to make sure you are getting the right amount of quality sleep to maximize your health and happiness
The importance of sleep
you might have wondered as many people do why we need to sleep and why is it so important you will spend nearly a third of your life sleeping that’s a lot of time thinking about it when you sleep you’re unaware of your external surroundings you lose all perception of the outside world in fact as soon as you fall asleep most of your senses are turned off you’re unaware of the sights the sounds and the smells around you this is an extremely dangerous state to be in especially if you’re prey to a larger animal on a food chain this is why most animals find a safe place to sleep why we as humans sleep in rooms and safe environments why would you naturally turn off all of your senses if sleeper and critically important for maintaining health this gives you a reason to learn about sleep and all of its benefits
Benefits of Sleep
sleep increases your concentration levels which allows you to learn and focus on a school it boosts your immune system so that you can avoid getting sick and thirdly it increases your emotional well-being during sleep human growth hormone is released from your brain helps your body grow and repair damage and build muscle
An important function of sleep
the most important function of sleep on the brain is its role in learning and memory formation is broken down into three processes the first is encoding which happens when you’re awake and takes in new information the second is consolidation which happens when you sleep and the new information is stored in your brain the third is retrieval which is when this stored information in your brain is accessed and are called or in other words when you remember the information the deepest stage of non REM sleep known as slow wave sleep is when memory consolidation happens how does this work sleep promotes the formation of new connections between brain cells these connections are called synapses
synapses are where your memories are stored it’s been found that more synapses are formed when well-rested versus in a sleep-deprived state therefore when studying for exams, you should keep in mind that an extra hour of late-night studying might be doing more harm than good you might be surprised that while sleep is a natural process more than half of all adults claim that they do not get enough sleep this is why it’s so important that you learn about the mechanisms of sleep
How much sleep do you need
the amount of sleep you need actually changes throughout your life depending on your age and how much energy you expend in a day infants need about 16 hours of sleep a day while teenagers need about nine hours on average adults to tend to only need about seven to eight hours a night the amount of sleep you need also increases if you’ve been deprived of sleep in the previous days on average you should get one hour of sleep for every two hours you spend awake this is a 1 to 2 ratio so say your day is 16 hours long you wake up at 7 a.m. and you go to bed at 11 p.m. this means that you should get 16 divided by 2 which is 8 hours of sleep this is a good way to keep track of how much sleep you need on a day-to-day basis
