Easy Way to Improve Your Health: Get Enough Sleep!
Do you suffer from obesity, cardiovascular disease, or neurological problems? Are you prone to getting sick? Are you worried about catching COVID – again?
The secret to improving your immune response and lowering your risk of many chronic illnesses may be simpler than you think. Get enough sleep!
How much sleep do we need anyway?
Here are the National Sleep Foundation guidelines. These guidelines are periodically updated by an interdisciplinary panel of experts to re-evaluate age-specific recommendations. As of 2015, they made the following recommendations:
Teens 14-17 need 8-10 hours
Young adults 18-25 need 7-9 hours
Adults need 7-9 hours
Adults over 65 need 7-8
Babies and toddlers require much more sleep because they are still growing and developing (Hirshowitz et al. 2015)
Are you getting enough sleep? Be honest!
Sleep Crisis
We live in a culture that brags about lack of sleep. According to the CDC, at at least ⅓ of Americans are getting less than 7 hours of sleep a night.
In 1960, most Americans got 8-9 hours of sleep. Now they get closer to 7 (Antza et al., 2021).
Not getting 7-8 hours of restorative sleep every night is a threat to your well-being. Poor sleep contributes to the following health problems:
Obesity
Sugar cravings
high blood pressure
mood problems
aches and pains
low energy
Weakened immune system
No matter what your health struggles with, if you aren’t getting enough sleep, your body can’t heal itself. Period. And no amount of medication or nutritional supplements can override the damage caused by sleep deprivation.
Sleep and Obesity
Escalating rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes go hand in hand with the rising rates of sleep disorders. The problem is bidirectional. Being overweight can lead to sleep problems and sleep problems can lead to weight gain (Antza, 2021).
One problem is that lack of sleep increases stress hormones, leading to sugar cravings. A recent study of Mexican children who were not getting enough sleep showed that they were prone to sugar cravings and weight gain (Martinez et al., 2017).
Sleep and Cardiovascular Health
Lack of sleep raises blood pressure. Insomnia is recognized as a signifcant risk factor for heart attacks (Kohansieh & Makaryus, 2015).
Sleep and Neurological Diseases
Rates of neurological diseases are on the rise. Sleep deprivation interferes with the normal circadian rhythm of the body. It also interferes with the brain’s ability to clear out the plaques associated with both Alziemer’’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. During restorative sleep, the body clears out waste products that can compromise brain health (Birshiret et al., 2020).
Sleep and the Immune System
When you start to come down with something, you start to feel tired. Most people understand that during any kind of illness, from a cold to something more serious, the body requires sleep to get back to normal.
A good night’s sleep helps keep cytokines (inflammatory messengers) under control. Conversely, lack of sleep leads to low-grade systemic inflammation. Inflammation is now seen as key to many of today’s chronic health conditions. A healthy immune system activates chemical messengers that promote deep refreshing sleep (Bevedovsky et al., 2019).
Last but not least: Sleep and Covid
Getting insufficient sleep is an added risk factor for catching COVID and for hospitalization from the virus (Peng et al., 2022). To make things worse, the pandemic has exacerbated the mental health crisis in this country, leading to more insomnia which weakens the immune system (Silva et al., 2020).
Conclusion
Although as a nutritionist, I’m well-schooled in the use of supplements and diet to enhance sleep, my top suggestion to all ages – from teens to their grandparents – is the same: Put your phone in airplane mode one hour before bedtime! But for real. And starting tonight.
If you still suffer from insomnia after turning off the screen, please reach check out my freebie on my website, Top 8 Supplements to Fight Insomnia. There is a lot we can do to improve your sleep.
Disclaimer
The included information is not meant to or should not be used to replace or substitute medical treatment, recommendations, or the advice of your physician or health care provider. The information contained within is strictly for educational purposes and is based on evidence-based nutrition. If you believe you have a medical problem or condition, please contact your physician or healthcare provider.
References:
Antza, C., Kostopoulos, G., Mostafa, S., Nirantharakumar, K., & Tahrani, A. (2021). The links between sleep duration, obesity, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The Journal of endocrinology, 252(2), 125–141. https://doi.org/10.1530/JOE-21-0155
Besedovsky, L., Lange, T., & Haack, M. (2019). The Sleep-Immune Crosstalk in Health and Disease. Physiological reviews, 99(3), 1325–1380. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00010.2018
Bishir, M., Bhat, A., Essa, M. M., Ekpo, O., Ihunwo, A. O., Veeraraghavan, V. P., Mohan, S. K., Mahalakshmi, A. M., Ray, B., Tuladhar, S., Chang, S., Chidambaram, S. B., Sakharkar, M. K., Guillemin, G. J., Qoronfleh, M. W., & Ojcius, D. M. (2020). Sleep Deprivation and Neurological Disorders. BioMed research international, 2020, 5764017. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/5764017
Hirshowitz, M., Whiton K., Albert, S.M., Alessi, C., Bruni, O., DonCarlos, L., Hazen, N (...) (2015). National Seep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health, 1:1 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721815000157?via%3Dihub
Martinez, S. M., Tschann, J. M., Butte, N. F., Gregorich, S. E., Penilla, C., Flores, E., Greenspan, L. C., Pasch, L. A., & Deardorff, J. (2017). Short Sleep Duration Is Associated With Eating More Carbohydrates and Less Dietary Fat in Mexican American Children. Sleep, 40(2), zsw057. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsw057
Kohansieh, M., & Makaryus, A. N. (2015). Sleep Deficiency and Deprivation Leading to Cardiovascular Disease. International journal of hypertension, 2015, 615681. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/615681
Peng, L., Jing, J., Ma, J., He, S., Gao, X., & Wang, T. (2022). Insomnia and sleep duration on COVID-19 susceptibility and hospitalization: A Mendelian randomization study. Frontiers in public health, 10, 995664. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.995664
Scott, A. J., Webb, T. L., Martyn-St James, M., Rowse, G., & Weich, S. (2021). Improving sleep quality leads to better mental health: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Sleep medicine reviews, 60, 101556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2021.101556
Silva, E., Ono, B., & Souza, J. C. (2020). Sleep and immunity in times of COVID-19. Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992), 66Suppl 2(Suppl 2), 143–147. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.66.S2.143