Sleep is Critical for Everything
It is said that sleep is by the brain, of the brain, and for the brain. It is the consequence of having something that can do something so complex as what a brain does.
But sleep has been underrated — health advice for decades revolved around firstly food, and secondly exercise. Both important we know, but sleep is the third pillar. Indeed this year there was a position statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine saying that sleep is a biological necessity, and insufficient sleep and untreated sleep disorders are detrimental for health, well-being, and public safety.
And that is more than true — when we look at the processes that take place in sleep and the dramatic impacts on the brain and body it is easy to see why:
Lack of sleep causes severe mental disruption including hallucinations within 48 hours and can potentially lead to death (but normally doesn’t because the brain finds ways to sleep or shut itself down).
Just one night of sleep deprivation causes significant cognitive impairment.
One week of sleep deprivation (30% less sleep) causes significant loss of brain communication integrity and also cognitive levels had not returned to normal after 1 week of recovery. Read about it here.
Virtually all psychological disorders and pathologies are related to disrupted sleep.
Many physiological disorders are also strongly correlated with disrupted sleep
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The list could go on but we can see that sleep is an essential component for anybody with a brain.
And the reasons are also clear:
The brain detoxifies during sleep
Cellular metabolism of neurons is reset during sleep
Functional connectivity is reset during sleep
And, interestingly, dreaming oxygenates the brain
Emotional reconsolidation takes place during sleep
Sleep is essential for matching emotions to memories
Muscular growth and coordination improves with sleep
But that’s not all
The majority of brain wiring happens during sleep
That means that the majority of learning and memory formation happens in sleep — if you want to develop new skills, and learn new things, and grow yourself, and your brain, you need sleep.
On the counter side lack of sleep will lead to a build up of toxins and this can cause destruction and lead to degenerative diseases. For example, a study this year reported how sleep helps clear toxic proteins that are key to developing Alzheimer’s.
I also reported on another piece of research that looked into the genetic impacts of sleep and found that sleep affected the expression of 78% of genes in the brain. Yes, 78%! Which is why I wrote that sleep affects everything — they also noted that fat metabolism is also under its control and disrupted sleep caused disrupted fat metabolism also explaining the strong link between obesity and sleep disruptions.
But the long and short of it is that sleep is an essential cornerstone to all aspects of life. For health, well-being, happiness, learning, cognitive performance, physical performance, fat metabolism, protection against mental disorders, and protection against neurodegenerative diseases.
And a final word of warning a good night’s sleep is essential but there is also evidence that too much sleep is also bad for you. So get a good night’s sleep but also get yourself active!