The Importance of Sufficient Sleep

“Sleeping is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” – Thomas Dekker

Most of us don’t get enough sleep. We’re usually exposed to too much stress, work on our days-off, don’t have a proper vacation or holiday, stay up all night to work, study, play some games or check the social media. Some people underrate sleeping, thinking it’s a waste of time, while others prefer to sacrifice sleep for work. No matter which category you belong to, you should know that sleeping is very important for our mental and physical health and its lack has many consequences.

Sleeping affects our mood, productivity, creativity, memory, ability to learn, satisfaction at work, etc. When we aren’t sleeping well, we can become very anxious, lose concentration, have lower performance on the exam/at work, cause some accidents (especially if we’re drivers), have health issues, such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, backache, headache, weak immune system or cardiovascular disease.

In order to prevent that, we should start sleeping 7-9 hours. The best way to replenish our body is to fall asleep before midnight, since our body can completely detox, recharge and relax. The ideal time for sleeping is between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Even if we sleep less than 7 hours, our sleep will be of a high quality, and therefore, we won’t feel tired. However, if we fall asleep after midnight, even if we sleep longer, we’ll still feel tired, since our body starts to release harmful substances and we won’t be able to sleep well.

If we feel sleepy during the day, regardless of how well we’d slept the previous night, it’s healthy to take a ‘power nap‘ – a nap which takes 10-20 min only. It gives us the energy to go through the rest of the day. If we sleep longer, we’ll feel tired and it won’t have the same effect. Many companies realised the importance of sleeping and nowadays, many of them offer a special space for napping, since it’s very healthy for our productivity and it prevents employees from losing concentration or falling asleep at work.

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