Sleep and how it supports us ....
(scroll down for tips)
Sleep is essential for our overall health and well-being. Sleep is crucial for:
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Restoring and repairing the body: During sleep, our body undergoes important restorative processes such as repairing damaged tissues and producing new cells, which helps to promote overall physical health.
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Enhancing cognitive function: Sleep plays a critical role in cognitive function, including memory consolidation, learning, and problem-solving. Getting adequate sleep helps to improve concentration and productivity, and reduces the risk of cognitive decline and memory problems.
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Supporting immune function: Sleep is important for maintaining a healthy immune system, which helps to protect us from infections and illnesses.
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Regulating mood and emotions: Sleep is also critical for regulating mood and emotions. Lack of sleep can lead to irritability, mood swings, and difficulty coping with stress.
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Promoting cardiovascular health: Adequate sleep has been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular problems.
You can really see that sleep is essential for our physical, cognitive, and emotional health and the days of 'powering on' in the name of career or simply scrolling are long over.
It is also now widely known that less sleep often correlates with weight gain over time as lighter sleepers have lower levels of leptin and higher levels of ghrelin which promote hunger (in particular for simple sugars or carbs). In fact the University of Chicago found that sleeping less than six hours a night caused a 40% drop in insulin sensitivity, leading to greater risk of obesity, high blood pressue and type 2 diabetes. 7-8 hour is the optimum amount and yet a shocking 90% of Australians reporting suffering from sleep disturbances at some time with 30% struggling to cope with ongoing, regular, sleep issues.
So - if you or your partner have sleep issues, chances are you will be gaining weight. It's a vicious circle as when this weight enlarges the fat cells in the throat, the soft tissues will encroach on your airways leading to snoring. Then, poor sleep leads to raised cortisol, further compromising your ability to sleep well and acting to slow the metabolism.
If you are on a weight loss program, either going it alone or with a commercial or medically controlled program, you must take your sleep issues into account. In fact your physicians should be mentioning it to you - so if they don't please bring it up in discussion.
Having been an insomniac for many years myself, this topic is near and dear to my heart so I hope some of the tips below can help. I also conduct stress and relaxation therapy and use EFT, breathwork and mindfulness with great results.
