Importance of Sleep

There was a problem at home the night before last night and as a result, it kept me awake the entire night. No matter how much I'd love to go to sleep already, I just can't. I was just tossing and turning on my bed, changing positions but to no avail. Good thing, at 3 a.m, sleep has finally come to visit me. But because I have work at 8 a.m. and my body clock is already set to wake up at 6 in the morning, my body's built in alarm clock woke me up after barely having 3 hours of sleep.

Sleeping has been my problem for a long time now. Before, when I was still working in the BPO company, I was always assigned to the graveyard shift. I usually work from 7 p.m until 4 a.m and sleeps for an hour and proceeds to either my part-time job or participate in some volunteering works.

My friends have always been amazed of how I can manage to do so without getting sick. There were days when I hardly get 2 hours of sleep and what makes me feel bad about it is that there are times when it seems like I can no longer feel my head attached to my body (I know that may seem overreacting, but I'm serious), I'm nauseous at times and feels like I want to vomit. That setup continued for almost a year, and I'm just thankful that I didn't get sick at all during that time.

At home, I was sharing a room with my sisters, so I couldn't get a decent sleep at all. I'm very sensitive to noises and even just the noise of a plastic bag or even when my sisters whispers to each other could easily wake me up.

I can't sleep when the lights are on, so I also find it hard to sleep during the day because I can see light. One time, I've set up curtains around the room which made it look like a cave, but since there is still a bit of light passing from the door, I couldn't sleep again.

And right now, I'm writing this because I badly want to sleep already since I didn't get a decent sleep for the past 24 hours, but my mind is still wide awake. So I thought of writing about it, hoping that I'll feel sleepy while writing.

I always wonder why some people can easily travel to dreamland as soon as they close their eyes but me on the other hand, it usually takes a couple of an hour before sleep visits me.

Sleep, is it Really Important?

Admit it, when you are still young your mom or dad or any adult that is looking after you asked you to sleep or get a 'siesta' after lunchtime or in the afternoon. But as kids, we would rather play than to sleep. Sometimes, moms who are looking after their kids to sleep are the first ones to go to dreamland while their kids are silently laughing feeling triumphant because they will no longer go to sleep.

As a kid, I also felt that sleep is a punishment, and it is just a waste of time. I'd rather read my books than go to sleep. But now that I am an adult, I realized how important sleep is. It is no longer a punishment, but I feel like it's a luxury, getting more 8 hours of sleep in a day or at night is already an accomplishment for me.

Falling Asleep is a mystery

If we try to observe the sleeping habits of babies, they have short periods of sleep every day but if we add the total amount of time they sleep, they sleep for about 18 hours each day. But as we grow older, our sleeping habits changes. Our jobs usually deprives us of getting 8-10 hours of sleep each day.

What can make us fall asleep? What can make us lose consciousness when we fall asleep? Well, this has been a mystery, even researchers find it a mystery until now. Since I was particularly interested with sleep, I've read a magazine a few years ago. It is discussed in that magazine that our brain regulates the complex process of sleep and sleeping has a 24-hours biological clock. This is the reason why we would usually talk about our 'body clock'.  

According to researchers, our body clock is also the one responsible why there are people who struggle to wake up in the morning while it is easy for others and why others find it hard to fall asleep while others can in just a blink of an eye.

One of the many chemical substances that regulates our bod clock is called melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone which is believed to be responsible for triggering sleepiness. The brain produces this hormone, and slows down our body's metabolism. According to researchers, this process occurs prior to  falling asleep. After this hormone is released, the flow of blood to the brain is reduced as well as our body temperature, our body muscles also slowly lose their tone and as a result, our body becomes more relaxed as we get ready to drift to dreamland.

Reasons why Sleep is Important.

Sleep is divided into two phases: REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep. Non-REM sleep can be subdivided into four stages of progressively deeper sleep. During a healthy night’s sleep, REM sleep occurs several times, alternating with non-REM sleep.

• It makes a person feel physically refreshed. During REM sleep, most dreams occurs and our body muscles are the most relaxed so as a result we feel refreshed upon waking up.

• More growth hormones are produced during sleep. During non-REM sleep, more growth hormones are produced. Studies show that some teens produces this hormone fifty times more at night than during the day.

• Sleep can affect our mood. Have you ever experience when someone suddenly woke you up while on a deep sleep? What happens after then? We tend to become irritated, that's why Filipinos have this saying: 'magbiro ka na sa lasing, wag lang sa bagong gising', which when translated means, you can make fun of a drunken person but never do it with a person who just woke up.

• Sleep affects our appetite. Scientists believe that the brain interprets lack of sleep as a lack of food. Sleep deprivation leads to more consumption of carbohydrates which can turn into obesity if not controlled.

While sleep is vital for our health, sleep deprivation also has consequences. Consider the following:

The short term effects of sleep deprivation are: 

Sudden mode swings, lack pf concentration, drowsiness, loss of short-term memory and the lack of capacity to concentrate.

While there are also long term effects of sleep deprivation, and these are:

Fatigue, obesity, chronic memory loss, and it increases the risk of having gastrointestinal and cardiovascular diseases a swell as diabetes.

I was writing this article last night because I could not sleep again but I ended up falling asleep while writing 😅