Health Investigation: Sleep, is it overrated?

Many people are caught in the proverbial rat race of life. School, work, family, finding time for exercise, friends, eating and then repeating. “But, wait a minute—you missed a step. You forgot to include resting.” 

No I didn’t, the fact is, many people are actually not including sleep as part of their daily routine. They view sleep as overrated, making sleep deficit as a normal part of their life. 

Why is sleep deficit a problem?

Because less than five hours sleep per night on a regular basis is associated with higher mortality, chronic inflammation, blood pressure issues, insulin resistance, weight gain, and cardiovascular disease and having less than seven hours sleep for three nights in a row has the same effect on the body as missing one full night of sleep which would increase your risk of being diagnosed a with a chronic disease in the future. You might be thinking, “I am in bed for 6 or 7 hours. Surely that is enough sleep”. 

Yes that is true, if you are in the appropriate sleep cycle. Sleep research has shown that depending on the demographic or state many are not. Instead, they are in a chronic sleep deficit. This explains why you might feel tired even though you were in bed for 7 hours.  

I can just catch up on the weekends?

I am sorry I have to break this to you. Unfortunately, research has shown that weekend recovery sleep is not an effective strategy to prevent metabolic dysregulation associated with recurrent insufficient sleep. Because, just for one hour of sleep debt, a person would actually need four days of adequate rest. Since many people get less sleep than they need almost every weeknight, it becomes mathematically impossible to close that gap in only two weekend nights. If this becomes habitual, it can result in chronic elevation of cortisol levels that affect the resiliency of your normal stress response and may accelerate the development of metabolic and cognitive consequences of cortisol excess. 

What’s the best way to avoid a sleep deficit? Simple–get to bed early! 

Some people may be in bed 8 or 9 hours, but are unable to get a good night's sleep. 

What are 5 things that you can do to get a good night's sleep?

I will be covering this in my upcoming post.

 What are your sleep remedies? Please leave it in the comment section below. Please share this post if you think someone will benefit from this.