Is something, or are some things keeping you up? Maybe you’ve had a lot of coffee than you normally do, or maybe you are having insomnia for some reason. If you are not getting the recommended hours of sleep a day, you won’t just feel tired, cranky, and moody the next day. Sleep deprivation has other effects too.

 

Sleep is an important part of everyday life. It is just as important as eating. The body won’t last for too long if left without sleep. In other words, it is crucial. But it isn’t just the hours of sleep that you get that should be paid attention to. It’s also the quality of it. Other than making the brain hazy, sleep deprivation can adversely affect other parts of the body as well.

 

The brain is a part of a bigger system called the Central Nervous System. Brain cells travel and function within it. A deprivation in sleep can cause fatigue in the brain.

During sleep, pathways form between nerve cells (neurons) in your brain that help you remember new information you’ve learned. Sleep deprivation leaves your brain exhausted, so it can’t perform its duties as well.

You may also find it more difficult to concentrate or learn new things. The signals your body send may also be delayed, decreasing your coordination and increasing your risk for accidents.

Sleep deprivation also negatively affects your mental abilities and emotional state. You may feel more impatient or prone to mood swings. It can also compromise decision-making processes and creativity.

(Via:https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep-deprivation/effects-on-body#4)

 

Your immune system functions to protect the body from foreign invaders, especially pathogenic ones. It also works to fight such intruders.

While you sleep, your immune system produces protective, infection-fighting substances like cytokines. It uses these substances to combat foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses.

Cytokines also help you sleep, giving your immune system more energy to defend your body against illness.

Sleep deprivation prevents your immune system from building up its forces. If you don’t get enough sleep, your body may not be able to fend off

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Kids do get sleep. In fact, babies sleep almost all the time. While adults need the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep a day, babies need 2/3 of the day sleeping.

As children grow older, the amount of sleep they need varies:

• toddlers: 11 to 14 hours
• preschoolers: 10 to 13 hours
• school-aged children: 9 to 12 hours
• teens: 8 to 10 hours

(Via:https://www.healthline.com/health/how-much-deep-sleep-do-you-need#deep-sleep)

Children need to have good quality and quantity of sleep simply because they are growing. And sleep helps support their growth stage. A lot of things can happen during the growth stage. They will need all the help they can get for optimum growth. And sleep is one of them.

 

Deep sleep stimulates growth, especially in babies.

“Growth hormone is primarily secreted during deep sleep,” says Judith Owens, M.D., director of sleep medicine at Children’s National Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., and a Parents advisor. Mother Nature seems to have protected babies by making sure they spend about 50 percent of their time in this deep sleep, considered to be essential for adequate growth. Italian researchers, studying children with deficient levels of growth hormone, have found that they sleep less deeply than average children do.

(Via:https://www.parents.com/health/healthy-happy-kids/the-7-reasons-your-kid-needs-sleep/)

 

Even at a young stage, sleep protects children from cardiovascular harm due to cholesterol and stress hormones.

“Children with sleep disorders have excessive brain arousal during sleep, which can trigger the fight-or-flight response hundreds of times each night,” says Jeffrey Durmer, M.D., Ph.D., a sleep specialist and researcher in Atlanta. “Their blood glucose and cortisol remain elevated at night. Both are linked to higher levels of diabetes, obesity, and even heart disease.”

(Via:https://www.parents.com/health/healthy-happy-kids/the-7-reasons-your-kid-needs-sleep/)

 

Children, including babies, can actually go overboard with food as well, especially if parents mistook their babies’ cry as hunger. But getting enough sleep can counter this.

That’s key, because the sleep-weight connection seems to snowball. When we’ve eaten enough to be satisfied, our fat cells create the hormone leptin, which signals us to stop eating. Sleep deprivation may impact this hormone, so kids keep right on eating. “Over

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Mankind has never been busier before than they are now. Today is all about hustling. And it is becoming a norm. At work, there are a lot of things that need to be done in a short period of time. The same goes at home. Getting sleep is almost a luxury. Time ticks so fast that often times we have a hard time getting a hold of it. But if you don’t know it yet, sleep is a vital part of life.

 

Sleep, more specifically enough sleep and good quality sleep, is crucial so you could work efficiently and safely. Not getting enough of it can lead to many problems.

According to the NSF, these are some of the ramifications of sleep problems:

• Decreased alertness and attentiveness
• Increased irritability and relationship difficulties
• Decreased concentration and judgment
• Decreased performance and productivity
• Increased risk of accidents

(Via:https://www.parents.com/parenting/moms/healthy-mom/adult-sleep/)

 

Sleep deprivation can cause lessen work efficiency and competence. It can also affect relationships. And most of all, it can get you in an unwanted accident. So if you want to be at the top of your game, all you might be missing is a good night’s sleep. Safety is crucial as well. Getting enough sleep will prevent road accidents from taking place.

 

The recommended hours of sleep is at 7-9 hours a day. But for some people who aren’t getting enough sleep lately, the numbers may change. To determine it yourself, you can do a simple test.

The amount of sleep needed varies with each individual. The NSF suggests a simple experiment to determine your optimum amount of sleep. You need a week or so to determine it, so you should be able to go to sleep when you’re tired and wake up naturally with no alarm clock. Taking a vacation or planning to have someone to help with your children is necessary to do this test.

Simply go to bed when you feel tired, and get up when you feel ready — don’t set an alarm clock. For a few days, you might be sleeping more if you’ve

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It is recommended for adults to have 7-9 hours of sleep every day. If you think that’s a lot of time and that you could have done something productive at that time, then it depends on what you mean by productive because resting the body for 7-9 hours is fruitful itself.

 

The body goes through a lot while you sleep so you can be more productive when you wake up. It goes through stages of sleep. Along with knowing that you need 7-9 hours of sleep a day, it is also important to know how much you need per stage of it.

There are five stages of sleep that rotate between non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) and include drowsiness, light sleep, moderate to deep sleep, deepest sleep, and dreaming.

Experts have recommended that adults gets about 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. New research aims to identify not just how much total sleep you need — but also how much of each stage of sleep you need.

Sleep stages 1, 2, and REM consist of light sleep, while 3 and 4 comprise deep sleep.

(Via:https://www.healthline.com/health/how-much-deep-sleep-do-you-need)

 

Healthy individuals need about a quarter of the total number of sleeping hours to be in deep sleep.

In healthy adults, about 13 to 23 percent of your sleep is deep sleep. So if you sleep for 8 hours a night, that’s roughly 62 to 110 minutes.

However, as you get older you require less deep sleep.

During deep sleep, a variety of functions take place in the mind and body:

• memories are consolidated
• learning and emotions process
• physical recovery occurs
• blood sugar levels and metabolism balance out
• the immune system is energized
• the brain detoxifies

(Via:https://www.healthline.com/health/how-much-deep-sleep-do-you-need)

 

The same goes for REM sleep. The REM cycle starts at 1 ½ hours after you’ve fallen asleep and repeats at the same time interval.

For most adults, REM takes up about 20 to 25 percent of sleep, and this seems to be healthy during average sleep cycles. However, sleep research is raising some interesting

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You won’t always know that you snore. In fact, you don’t actually realize that you are snoring. It’s your partner that knows and complains especially if it gets loud. It can be really loud.

 

Snoring affects millions of people. But why do people snore? What is it really? Well, have you noticed an animation about someone singing loudly that their tiny tissue hanging on their throat is showing? Yes, that one. Sound is produced when air vibrates within the soft palates and that tissue. This happens when your airways get narrow.

When you hear someone snoring, it means air is not flowing freely through the back of the throat. The sound occurs when air causes vibration of the soft palate and the uvula, the tiny pink flap of tissue that hangs down at the rear of your throat.

(Via:http://www.columbianeurology.org/neurology/staywell/document.php?id=136)

 

Besides being an inconvenience to other people, snoring can mean something else to you. Snoring is not a disease or an illness. But it can be a symptom or a cause of a medical condition.

Asides from being a nuisance to your friends or your partner, snoring also affects how you sleep. It reduces the quality of your sleep, could result in sleep apnea or lead to chronic sleep deprivation. Ever woken up in the morning tired, cranky and not quite feeling like you got a good night time’s rest? Snoring might be the cause.

(Via:https://www.sleepcycle.com/snoring/10-natural-snoring-remedies/)

 

We need to know the factors other than medical ones that could affect snoring so we can properly address it on our own. The first and common one is weight. If you weigh more than you should at your age, height, or physical activities, then chances are that you’ll snore. If biology were to be a basis, then men are less fortunate than women.

A couple of factors come into play here. One popular one is weight. Carrying excess weight around your neck and throat can cause snoring. Then there is good old biology. In general, men have narrower air passages than women and are most likely to

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You will snore at some point in your life. That is a fact. Will it imply that something is wrong? Yes, it can. Can something be done to address it? Yes to that as well.

 

Snoring happens when your air has a hard time getting through your air passages. The air vibrates within the walls of the throat and produces a sound that we know as a snore. Snoring is more common in middle to older aged people. The loud kind of snore, that is. Snoring can be both a symptom of a condition or a cause to it. This is why knowing your health condition, medical condition, sleeping practices, and the way you snore can help determine how to address your snoring problems.

 

If your snoring isn’t caused by a medical condition, then you can opt for a treatment that won’t necessarily require medical attention. But if you are in doubt, it’s best to consult your physician. Here are some natural measures you can do about your snoring.

 

Drop the excess weight.

People who are overweight are two times more likely to snore than those who aren’t. The reason is simple, overweight people carry extra fat around their necks which narrows their airways and causes them to snore. So lose a couple of pounds and lose your noisy nighttime companion. Switching up your diet, getting some exercise and ironically enough sleep will help you lose weight.

(Via:https://www.sleepcycle.com/snoring/10-natural-snoring-remedies/)

 

Switch to other sleeping positions.

Sleeping on your back can cause your airways to become blocked or narrowed. If you notice that you snore while sleeping on your back it is time to switch up your sleeping position. Sleeping on your side is usually recommended. Old habits die hard so the odds are that as you drift deeper into sleep you’d roll unto your back again. The fix? Invest in a body pillow. A body pillow will help you maintain sleeping on your side. Another mean old trick is sewing tennis balls unto the back of your pajamas.

(Via:https://www.sleepcycle.com/snoring/10-natural-snoring-remedies/)

 

Reduce alcohol consumption and …