Maintaining your health and well-being throughout your life will depend in large part on how well you sleep. Your mood upon waking could be influenced by the thoughts that ran through your head while you slept. During sleep, your body works tirelessly to ensure your well-being, both physically and mentally. Read more on importance of Sleep.
Sleep plays a crucial role in ensuring normal development and growth in infants, children, and adolescents. The risk of developing chronic (long-lasting) health problems may rise with prolonged sleep deprivation. It may also have an adverse effect on your ability to reason, react, work, learn, and get along with others.
Physiology of the heart and lungs
Once you’ve fallen asleep, your blood pressure and heart rate will naturally decline as you enter non-REM sleep. The parasympathetic nervous system takes over while you are sleeping, reducing the workload on your heart compared to while you are awake.
There is a strong connection between hormone levels and the need for restful sleep.
The different hormones in your body are released at different times of the day. This could be related to your sleeping habits or your internal clock, the circadian rhythm. Chemicals like cortisol, which help you stay awake, are released by your body in the morning. Melatonin is the name of one of these chemical messengers. For example, in children, testosterone, oestrogen, and progesterone are produced in peaks just before puberty, and then again throughout the night. Other hormones also follow 24-hour cycles that change as you age.
Sleep and metabolism
Circadian clocks in various tissues, including the liver, fat, and muscle, each have their own unique impact on how your body stores and uses fat. Your liver, for example, is primed to aid in fat digestion at at the right times of day thanks to the work of your circadian clocks. Your body’s reaction to the fat you eat could be altered if you eat at strange hours.
The respiratory and immune systems
Both the rate and depth of your breaths decrease, leading to a net decrease in oxygen intake when you sleep. These alterations may exacerbate the symptoms of preexisting illnesses in some people, such as those with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Asthma attacks tend to be at their worst first thing in the morning.
Sleep is essential to every person’s health and wellbeing, however, it is often overlooked as a factor in these areas. Sleep is crucial because it allows the body to repair itself and prepare for the next day.
