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Sleep is something we do every day, but many of us don't fully understand it, do we?
Some may think, "Sleep is just for sleeping."
However, precisely because sleep is a daily activity, you should know what effects it has and why we sleep. Let's actively get good sleep, maintain our health, and enrich our daily lives!
This time, we will explain the benefits of sleep. By reading this article, you can deepen your understanding of sleep!
1. The Deep Connection Between Sleep and the Human Body
As many of you probably know, sleep and the body are deeply connected. If you don't get enough sleep, fatigue accumulates, drowsiness persists, and your body's movements become sluggish.
When you sleep, your body feels lighter and your mind is clearer, right? That's because both your body and brain are resting during sleep.
Also, the saying "sleepy children grow" comes from the fact that growth hormones are secreted during sleep. From this, you can see that sleep is necessary not only for rest but also for growth.
It particularly has a significant impact on brain development. During REM sleep, the cerebrum is active and is said to play a role in developing and creating the brain.
Since sleep plays a role in brain creation, it is especially important for young children.
Sleep as an adult is also crucial. While sleeping, new information acquired during the day is organized and consolidated. Additionally, waste products in the brain are removed during sleep.
As mentioned above, sleep and the human brain are deeply connected.
2. 7 Benefits of Sleep
Sleep offers many benefits to the body and brain. Among these many benefits, we will introduce seven particularly significant ones.
Knowing the benefits will boost your motivation to improve the quality of your sleep. Please learn about the benefits of sleep, which accounts for approximately 1/3 of your life.
2-1. Physical Fatigue Recovery
Physical fatigue recovery is a benefit that many people can feel.
When a person is awake, their body is constantly working, even without conscious effort. Especially during the day, when the sympathetic nervous system is dominant, we become more active. When the sympathetic nervous system is dominant, blood sugar and pulse rise, and muscle activity becomes more vigorous. Brain concentration also increases, which means work progresses smoothly.
Conversely, during sleep, the parasympathetic nervous system becomes dominant. This leads to a calming of blood pressure and pulse. Of course, this doesn't happen for the entire duration of sleep. As waking time approaches, blood pressure and pulse have been observed to rise.
Thus, sleep's benefit is to recover from the fatigue of being awake and prepare for the next day.
2-2. Promotes the Secretion of Growth Hormone
As the saying goes, "sleepy children grow," and a large amount of growth hormone is secreted during sleep. The role of growth hormone is to promote physical growth, cell repair, and metabolic regulation.
Growth hormone is not secreted uniformly during sleep; the most is secreted during the first sleep cycle. Therefore, special attention must be paid to the depth of sleep at the beginning of sleep.
When we hear "growth hormone," we tend to focus on things like height growth and skeletal formation, right?
However, it also plays an important role even in adulthood, helping with cell repair and other functions. In other words, it is also an anti-aging hormone.
2-3. Memory Consolidation and Organization
It is well known that memory is consolidated during sleep, and this is a significant benefit. During sleep, memories of events and things learned that day are organized. At the same time, they are also consolidated, making sleep essential for studying.
It is often said that dreams are a way of organizing the events and thoughts of the day.
Sleep plays a more crucial role in long-term memory than short-term memory, so get enough sleep to consolidate things you want to remember for a long time.
2-4. Boosting Immunity
Getting enough sleep can lead to improved and maintained immunity.
Many people know that if you don't get enough sleep, your hormone balance can be disrupted, and your immune function can weaken. This is why lack of sleep makes you more susceptible to illness.
In fact, it is said that many people catch colds or the flu during peak seasons due to lack of sleep. *1
Experiments have also shown that shorter sleep duration makes one more susceptible to viral infections. Furthermore, even if preventive vaccines or medications are taken, their effectiveness may be reduced if proper sleep is not obtained.
Considering this background, it makes sense that we sleep when we catch a cold.
2-5. Ability to Control Appetite
Lack of sleep increases ghrelin, an appetite-stimulating hormone, and decreases leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone. Naturally, appetite will increase.
If you eat more without a change in your usual exercise or activity levels, you will gain weight, leading to obesity.
When your appetite increases and you gain weight, leading to obesity, you also become more susceptible to lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes, trapping you in a negative cycle.
To control your appetite and prevent obesity and lifestyle-related diseases, first ensure you get enough sleep.
2-6. Helps Build a Body That Is Less Prone to Gaining Weight
Some people believe that "lack of sleep leads to weight gain" is a myth, but it's not entirely wrong.
This is related not only to the inability to control appetite due to increased ghrelin and decreased leptin but also to decreased daily activity and a drop in metabolism.
If your mood doesn't lift, you don't move, and your metabolism tends to decrease, then gaining weight is inevitable. By getting enough sleep, you can improve your metabolism and efficiently absorb nutrients and recover. You'll also build muscle more easily and get closer to a body that's less prone to weight gain!
2-7. Stabilizes Mental State
Sleep is known to have benefits directly related to the brain and body, but it also has benefits for mental well-being.
It is also known that getting enough sleep reduces anxiety and stress. A state of high anxiety and stress can induce errors and further increase stress, so caution is needed.
If you tend to think negatively and feel anxious, you might not be getting enough sleep.
So, sleep is important for stabilizing your mental state. There's a chicken-and-egg debate about whether anxiety prevents sleep or lack of sleep increases anxiety.
While there's no clear answer to which comes first, it's certain that insufficient sleep worsens the situation.
It's important to identify and resolve the cause of anxiety, but it's also crucial to get proper sleep to reset your mind, body, and emotions. Your mind and heart will be refreshed, and you might even come up with unexpected ideas!
3. How to Maximize the Benefits of Sleep
There are still more benefits to sleep. Understand each benefit, and it is crucial to secure enough sleep time first, so let's improve this immediately.
Once you've secured enough sleep time, some of you might think, "If I'm going to sleep for the same amount of time anyway, I want to maximize the benefits!"
For those people, we will explain what to do to maximize the benefits.
3-1. Improve Sleep Quality
First, to maximize the benefits, you need to improve the quality of your sleep. As introduced in other articles, there are many ways to improve sleep quality.
These include avoiding caffeine before sleep and refraining from using smartphones. If you want to know more, please read this article as well.
Summary of "The Best Sleep Method" 10 Rules to Improve Sleep Quality
If your sleep quality improves, you will reap more benefits.
If you've ever felt that you're still tired even after sleeping, it's time to re-evaluate your sleep quality.
3-2. Know Your Optimal Sleep Duration
Have you ever experienced feeling not quite right even after getting plenty of sleep? Why does this happen despite having enough sleep? The reason might be oversleeping.
More sleep is not always better. Research has shown that too much sleep can actually be detrimental.
The mortality rate is a clear indicator. A cohort study conducted in the U.S. from 1982 to 1988 involving over 1.1 million people showed that compared to those who slept around 7 hours, the mortality risk for those who slept around 3 hours was approximately 1.2 times higher. Similarly, for those who slept around 9 hours, it was also about 1.2 times higher, and for those who slept over 10 hours, it increased to approximately 1.35 times. *2
As this result indicates, oversleeping is also not good.
Summary: Live by Leveraging the Benefits of Sleep
It's clear that sleep, essential to our daily lives, offers numerous benefits.
Let's review the key points from this article.
- Sleep has many benefits and is indispensable for daily life.
- To maximize the benefits of sleep, it is necessary to "improve sleep quality" and "understand appropriate sleep duration."
- More sleep is not always better.
By understanding the benefits of sleep, you can effectively utilize it. Get good sleep and lead a more comfortable life.
[Recommended articles here]
Summary of "The Best Sleep Method" 10 Rules to Improve Sleep Quality
[References]
*1 People who sleep less than ○ hours are 3 times more likely to catch a cold!?
*2 No. 103: The mystery of higher mortality risk for long sleepers
