The importance of getting enough sleep
Many people don’t get enough sleep at night because they are “too busy” doing other things. Getting enough sleep is vitally important to maintaining good health and helping you heal if you have health problems. It is also an important factor in preventing future health problems.
sleep facts
More and more scientific research is emerging showing the importance of sleep and how detrimental sleep deprivation is to health. Recent research has found that people who routinely sleep less than seven hours a night are 21-26% more likely to die from any cause than people who routinely sleep more than eight hours a night.
Every animal sleeps. There are no animals that do not sleep. Biologically, that means sleep is just as important as breathing and eating.
Fascinating brain research has recently been conducted that has uncovered more about how the brain works and what it does at night. I was shocked when I read it. When we are active during the day, working, exercising and going about our daily activities, we are using a lot of our brain functions. This causes a buildup of toxins and chemical byproducts that occur naturally as part of that process. When we sleep at night, the brain actually pumps through a nightly “wash cycle,” like a dishwasher, that flushes out those toxins and byproducts built up during the day. Just stop and think about that for a moment. What happens if you don’t wash the dishes properly? A lot of dirt accumulates. Now think about what happens in your brain. What do you think happens when a lot of toxins and crap build up in the brain? Will it have an impact on brain function and health? Absolutely. If you don’t get enough sleep at night, the wash cycle won’t work properly.
Decades of sleep research show that eight hours of sleep a night is the magic number. Children and adolescents need a little more.
The perspective of Chinese medicine
In Chinese medicine, we want to balance yin and yang in the body to restore and maintain health. Yang energy provides heat, fire, and functional activity for the body. The day is yang time. It is warm, light and the time when we are busy with our daily activities. Many of us end up acting “too yang”, i.e. go, go, go all the time, without enough “down time” or time to rest and rejuvenate the body (and mind and spirit, for that matter).
Yin energy is the refreshing, moisturizing and nourishing energy of the body. Night is the time of yin, when it is cooler, darker, and quieter. During yin time, our body naturally needs to be calm and rest to recover from the day’s activities. What happens when you stay up too late, do too much, and don’t stay long enough? You work too much, burn yin energy and feel tired. The yin/night/rest time is just as important as the yang/active time! Unfortunately, all of our great technology to make us more efficient, instead of giving us more free time, has made us do a lot more things in less time. We are always trying to include one more thing we can do before we go to bed.
If you think getting more done is more important than sleeping, consider the research mentioned above. And, research has shown that those who don’t get enough sleep (less than 8 hours) gain more weight, and there is an increase in heart attacks in those who don’t get enough sleep.
How to get control of your dream
As you can see, eight hours of sleep a night is really important. Tonight, consider if you really need to do one or two more things before bed. Do you really need to stay up and watch the end of the movie or finish reading the book tonight? Plan your time at night, like during the day. What time do you have to go to bed to sleep eight hours? If you start watching the TV show or movie, will it finish in enough time for you to go to bed at the desired time? Set an alarm if necessary, to tell you to stop what you’re doing and get ready for bed. It’s a matter of creating good clothes and training your body when it comes to stopping and going to sleep. Never work in bed.
Also, consider if you’re simply doing too much. What can you cut or say “no”? It’s easy to do too much. It happens to everyone at some point. Take control of your life and balance your work and leisure time to maintain your good health. And of course, if you have any difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep at night, acupuncture and Chinese herbs work great for insomnia.