Side effects of enough sleep.

While sleeping well is no guarantee of good health, it does help to maintain many vital functions. One of the most important of these functions may be to provide cells and tissues with the opportunity to recover from the wear and tear of daily life. Major restorative functions in the body such as tissue repair, muscle growth, and protein synthesis occur almost exclusively during sleep.

Many other conclusions about the role sleep plays in maintaining health have come from studying what happens when humans and other animals are deprived of the sleep they need. For example, scientists have discovered that insufficient sleep may cause health problems by altering levels of the hormones involved in such processes as metabolism, appetite regulation, and stress response.¹¹,¹²,¹³ Studies such as these may one day lead to a better understanding of how insufficient sleep increases disease risk.

In the meantime, sleep experts say there is ample evidence that shows that when people get the sleep they need, they will not only feel better, but will also increase their odds of living healthier, more productive lives.

Here are some benefits of enough sleep.

Improve memory
Your mind is surprisingly busy while you snooze. During sleep you can strengthen memories or "practice" skills learned while you were awake (it’s a process called consolidation).

Live longer
Too much or too little sleep is associated with a shorter lifespan—although it’s not clear if it’s a cause or effect. (Illnesses may affect sleep patterns too.)

Curb inflammation

Inflammation is linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, and premature aging. Research indicates that people who get less sleep—six or fewer hours a night—have higher blood levels of inflammatory proteins than those who get more.

Spur creativity

Get a good night’s sleep before getting out the easel and paintbrushes or the pen and paper.

Be a winner

If you’re an athlete, there may be one simple way to improve your performance: sleep.

Improve your grades

Children between the ages of 10 and 16 who have sleep disordered breathing, which includes snoring, sleep apnea, and other types of interrupted breathing during sleep, are more likely to have problems with attention and learning, according to a 2010 study in the journal Sleep. This could lead to "significant functional impairment at school," the study authors wrote.

Sharpen attention

A lack of sleep can result in ADHD-like symptoms in kids, Dr. Rapoport says. 

Have a healthy weight

If you are thinking about going on a diet, you might want to plan an earlier bedtime too.

Lower stress

When it comes to our health stress and sleep are nearly one and the same—and both can affect cardiovascular health. 

Avoid accidents

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported in 2009 that being tired accounted for the highest number of fatal single-car run-off-the-road crashes due to the driver’s performance—even more than alcohol! 

Steer clear of depression

Sleeping well means more to our overall well-being than simply avoiding irritability. 

Sources:

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20459221,00.html

http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/need-sleep/whats-in-it-for-you/health

Side effects of sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation can cause damage to your body in the short term. Over time, it can lead to chronic health problems and negatively impact your quality of life. 

You need sleep as much as you need to breathe and eat. While you’re sleeping, your body is busy tending to your physical and mental health and getting you ready for another day.

In children and adolescents, hormones that promote growth are released during sleep. These hormones help build muscle mass, as well as make repairs to cells and tissues. Sleep is vital to development during puberty.

When you’re deprived of sleep, your brain can’t function properly, affecting your cognitive abilities and emotional state. If it continues long enough, it can lower your body’s defenses, putting you at risk of developing chronic illness. The more obvious signs of sleep deprivation are excessive sleepiness, yawning, and irritability. Chronic sleep deprivation can interfere with balance, coordination, and decision-making abilities. You’re at risk falling asleep during the day, even if you fight it. Stimulants like caffeine are not able to override your body’s profound need for sleep.

When you’re sleep deprived, the effects of alcohol consumption are magnified, as is your risk of being involved in an accident. According to Harvard Medical School, studies show that sleeping less than five hours a night increases the risk of death from all causes by about 15 percent. Sleep deprivation is dangerous to your mental and physical health and can dramatically lower your quality of life.

The price of insufficient sleep may be poor health. Study after study has revealed that people who sleep poorly are at greater risk for a number of diseases and health problems. And now the search is on to discover why this might be.

Lack of sleep exacts a toll on perception and judgment. In the workplace, its effects can be seen in reduced efficiency and productivity, errors, and accidents. Sometimes the effects can even be deadly, as in the case of drowsy driving fatalities.

Deprivation

Sleep deprivation has serious health impacts, both in the short and long term. The main effect of sleep deprivation is excessive daytime sleepiness, which can lead to traffic accidents and workplace injuries. Sleep deprivation has both short- and long-term impacts on your health.

Short-term:

• Anxiety
• Drowsiness, leading to drowsy driving
• Forgetfulness
• Distractibility
• Decreased performance and alertness
• Memory and cognitive impairment
• Stressed relationships
• Occupational injury
• Automobile injury

Long-term:

• High blood pressure
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Obesity
• Psychiatric problems, including depression and other mood disorders
• Disruption of bed partner's sleep quality
• Poor quality of life

Sources:
http://www.healthline.com/health/sleep-deprivation/effects-on-body
http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/consequences
http://www.pamf.org/sleep/about/healtheffects.html

Why do we need to sleep?

Sleep is very important to our body. We tend to think of sleep as a time when the mind and body shut down.One of the vital roles of sleep is to help us solidify and consolidate memories. As we go about our day, our brains take in an incredible amount of information. Rather than being directly logged and recorded, however, these facts and experiences first need to be processed and stored; and many of these steps happen while we sleep. Overnight, bits and pieces of information are transferred from more tentative, short-term memory to stronger, long-term memory—a process called "consolidation." Researchers have also shown that after people sleep, they tend to retain information and perform better on memory tasks. Our bodies all require long periods of sleep in order to restore and rejuvenate, to grow muscle, repair tissue, and synthesize hormones.


One of the most recent and compelling explanations for why we sleep is based on findings that sleep is correlated to changes in the structure and organization of the brain. This phenomenon, known as brain plasticity, is not entirely understood, but its connection to sleep has several critical implications. It is becoming clear, for example, that sleep plays a critical role in brain development in infants and young children. Infants spend about 13 to 14 hours per day sleeping, and about half of that time is spent in REM sleep, the stage in which most dreams occur. A link between sleep and brain plasticity is becoming clear in adults as well. This is seen in the effect that sleep and sleep deprivation have on people's ability to learn and perform a variety of tasks.Several studies show that the light bulb has led people shifting their day and getting less sleep. On average we go to bed and wake up two hours later than a generation ago.

The US Centres for Disease Control reported in 2008 that around a third of working adults in the US get less than six hours sleep a night, which is 10 times more than it was 50 years ago. In a later study it was also reported that nearly half of all the country's shift workers were getting less than six hours sleep.

And a study led by Prof Charles Czeisler of Harvard Medical School found that those who read electronic books before they went to bed took longer to get to sleep, had reduced levels of melatonin (the hormone that regulates the body's internal body clock) and were less alert in the morning.

At the time of publication he said: "In the past 50 years, there has been a decline in average sleep duration and quality.

"Since more people are choosing electronic devices for reading, communication and entertainment, particularly children and adolescents who already experience significant sleep loss, epidemiological research evaluating the long-term consequences of these devices on health and safety is urgently needed."

Sources.
https://sleepfoundation.org/excessivesleepiness/content/why-do-we-need-sleep
http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/why-do-we-sleep
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32606341