Some say sleep is for the weak. Oh come on, that’s so absurd! The truth is, you’ll get weak if you will not have enough sleep. You will not have enough energy to do your chores. While the health benefits of sleeping may seem obvious already, there are still some people who don’t give attention to it. Well, if you are one of those people, read on to this article, to know what sleeping can do to your health! If you liked it, share to spread the awareness.
Why Do We Sleep?
Even without fully understanding what sleep does for us, we know in ourselves that living without enough sleep will make us feel terrible. Furthermore, we also know that getting a good deep can make us feel fully ready for taking this world.
Scientists have gone a long way just to understand fully what sleep is doing to our body and health. Furthermore, in studies of humans and some other animals, scientist discovered that sleep has a big role to play in the proper functioning of the immune system, learning, memory, metabolism, as well as some other vital functions.
Even though scientists are not that sure why we sleep, they have a lot of ideas regarding the functions of this particular mysterious part of our lives. While some of these functions may actually have profound evolutionary roots, the others, just like the potential role of sleep for the health and memory, seem specifically pertinent to life in the 21st century.
We sleep because we want to rest our body from a tiring day. This may be is one of the best answers to the question, why do sleep. Well, aside from that, we also sleep to rest various organs to be able to function properly again on the next day.
How much Sleep do you Need?
Over the time, chronic deprivation of sleep may result in an array of serious medical circumstances including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and even early mortality. While the sleeping requirements may vary from a person to another, there is a recommended sleep requirement for everyone, basing on age categories. This account for physiological changes, which may occur as we age.
Sleep Requirement by Age
| Age | Group | Sleep Requirement |
| 0 to 3 months old | Newborn | 14 to 17 hours |
| 4 to 11 months old | Infants | 12 to 15 hours |
| 1 to 2 years old | Toddlers | 11 to 14 hours |
| 3 to 5 years old | Preschoolers | 10 to 13 hours |
| 6 to 13 years old | School-age Children | 9 to 11 hours |
| 14 to 17 years old | Teens | 8 to 10 hours |
| 18 to 25 years old | Young Adults | 7 to 9 hours |
| 26 to 64 years old | Adults | 7 to 9 hours |
| 65 years old and above | Older Adults | 7 to 8 hours |
Moreover, studies also show that those who get enough amount of sleep regularly has the tendency to live longer and healthier lives than those who are deprived of it. Not only those who have few periods of sleep may have complications, even those who have too many hours of sleep in every night. This clearly emphasizes the importance of sleep.
Health Benefits of Sleeping
Here are some of the health benefits of sleeping:
- Helps in making immunity stronger: those who get seven hours of sleep or less every night have almost three times the likeliness to get sick, than those who get at least eight hours of sleep every night. When you have enough sleep, you’ll have a much stronger immunity.
- Helps in making better memories: our brains consolidate and processes our memories from the day. Thus having enough sleep may help in making the memories stay longer than the usual. Another health benefits of sleeping are that it reduces the chances of developing false memories.
- Helps make thinking clearer: studies show that people who have sleep deprivation have worse solving skills when it comes to math and logic problems than those who have enough sleep. So, sleep longer to make your minds clearer.
- Helps in controlling weight better: having enough amount of sleep may help in maintaining the weight, and in reverse, having less sleep may contribute to weight gain. Maybe you’re going to ask why this is partly because of some behavioral problems. having less sleep is also having less energy to go jogging.
- Helps in lowering the risk of injury: having enough sleep may help in keeping you much safer. This is since it is beneficial in reducing the risk of possible injury.
- Better sex life: sleep impairment may have an adverse effect on the testosterone levels. Therefore, it is just right to have enough sleep if you want a much healthier and much livelier sex life.
- Better health status: the overall health, in general, is the ones that benefit from having enough sleep. It grants immunity for the body against various infections, illnesses, etc.
