By Soda Kuczkowski How is your sleep? These are the four words that could potentially prevent more traffic accidents, help in deterring the onset of disease and improve the quality of life as we know it. Everyone can benefit from talking about the benefits of a good night’s sleep in our genera...
By Soda Kuczkowski
How is your sleep? These are the four words that could potentially prevent more traffic accidents, help in deterring the onset of disease and improve the quality of life as we know it. Everyone can benefit from talking about the benefits of a good night’s sleep in our generation.
Sleep is arguably the body’s best healing mechanism. It not only serves the purpose of energy conservation and memory consolidation but proves to be our most restorative function for keeping all of our biological processes running smoothly. It affects not only our state of mind, preventing the onset of Dementia and Alzheimer’s as we age, but helps us manage our blood pressure, maintain our weight, and reduces the likelihood of stroke or heart attack. Approaching this conversation with your doctor could potentially save your life. Think about “How well do you really sleep?” It is an issue that spans mankind as cultures lose focus on the importance of its most precious and oldest secrets for optimal health.
Sleep deprivation was declared a public health epidemic in 2015 by the Centers for Disease Control showcasing how we view sleep in terms of a healthy lifestyle. Sleep deprivation occurs when an individual fails to continually get enough sleep, resulting in a long list of health problems. Sleep deprivation can occur for a number of reasons, but it is most often due to unintentional voluntary behavior; not allowing yourself the right amount of sleep you need each night, work schedules and personal obligations, nutritional deficiencies, an underlying sleep disorder, health related issues, or medications.
When it comes to sleep, it’s not just quantity that matters but the quality of your sleep. How you feel during your waking hours weighs greatly on how well you slept. Similarly, the cure for daytime fatigue and sleep difficulties can often be found in your daily routine. Your sleep schedule, bedtime habits, and day-to-day lifestyle choices can have an enormous difference on the quality of your nightly rest. A great tool is to keep a sleep diary. Doing so will allow you to see patterns and make it easier to change your behavior. It can also lead you to the realization that a medical sleep issue may be at play and that further evaluation or testing may be needed by a sleep specialist. Take the time to reflect on how well you sleep. Are you struggling with energy throughout the day, waking up with headaches, do you never feel rested no matter how much you sleep?
The areas of sleep health and sleep medicine are only now gaining momentum as we are starting to understand the important role sleep plays in our everyday lives. If you are struggling with sleep, take the time to speak with your doctor. Your well-being is too important to ignore the risks associated with the long-term effects of sleep deprivation or an undiagnosed medical sleep disorder that can have an impact on your overall health and quality of life. Do not wait for your doctor to ask “How is your sleep?” Make the choice to prioritize your sleep because better sleep = better health.