What Does Sleeping Mean For The Body?
Sleep is a basic need. This helps maintain a healthy metabolic-organic correlation. If we do not respect the number of hours of adequate sleep and that we do not have a good quality of sleep, this can contribute to absolute harm to our health.
Sleep is an important and determining factor for the well-being of the whole organism. When we sleep, we don’t just recover. The body is fully restored, but basic energy levels are also restored.
The amount of sleep a person needs varies depending on the activity they are doing and what stage of life they are in. However, the ideal for an adult is to get between seven and eight hours of sleep a day.
Phases or stages of sleep
We can classify the phases of sleep into two categories: NREM and REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ). Sleep is divided into 90-minute cycles alternating between NREM and REM sleep. Usually there are five cycles per night. The NREM ( Not Rapid Eye Movement ) phase is made up of four sub-phases.
NREM phase
- Sleep initiation
This is the initial phase of sleep which can last between five and ten minutes. It is therefore easy to wake up from it. All the muscles in the body relax absolutely and brain activity decreases.
- Onset of sleep
This is the second step. Body temperature and heart rate decrease noticeably. This is the stage in which the body prepares to enter deep sleep and there is a deceleration in brain and muscle activity.
- Slow wave sleep
This is the third and fourth step. They are characterized by a deep sleep of the individual that is very hard to wake up. In addition, brain and muscle activity decreases significantly. During these stages, the body is responsible for repairing tissue, building muscle and bone, and helping to strengthen the immune system.
REM phase
During this phase, characterized by rapid eye movements, dreams occur. Brain activity is therefore rapid and there is paralysis of the muscles. The heart rate and breathing speed up and one can experience very intense dreams.
About 90 minutes after falling asleep, you enter the REM phase which lasts about 10 minutes. As the hours pass, the REM stages lengthen to a duration of up to an hour.
The importance of rest for the body
The number of hours of rest is not the only important point, the quality of sleep is also essential. Sleeping fewer hours means having to face the day with less attention span and difficulty retaining or reaching memories. In addition, the amount of physical labor that we can provide will also be affected.
“Studies indicate that when a person sleeps little, the likelihood of gaining weight, suffering from obesity, developing diabetes and preferring to eat high calorie foods or carbohydrates increases” .
-National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) –
The results
The quality of sleep is associated with clarity of thought, the ability to respond to external stimuli and to codify information. It can give rise to a memory. This happens because we do some kind of restoration of the cognitive system when we sleep.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute informs us that cutting back on quality sleep by one hour may cause us to have difficulty concentrating the next day. The reaction time will therefore be longer.
In this way, by “stealing” hours of sleep, ”the individual will be more likely to be unproductive at school, at work or even while driving. In addition, his moral state will be significantly affected and the individual will be more predisposed to irritability. Those who suffer from chronic sleep deprivation are therefore more likely to suffer from depression.
Ultimately, sleeping the right number of hours is fundamental to maintaining a good quality of life and being able to enjoy complete health at any stage of life.
Our thoughts The importance of sleeping well is directly linked to the physiological and psychological benefits of restful sleep. Rest in an inappropriate way …
