.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Stay Healthy & Beautiful: Reasons to get more Sleep



It could make you thinner

The less you sleep you get, the higher your body mass index tends to be. Research showed that people who sleep five hours a night were found to have 15 percent more ghrelin (a hormone that boosts hunger) in their bodies and 15 percent less leptin (which suppresses it) than those sleeping eight hours.

I could boost your memory

Sleep plays a key role in making new memories stick in the brain. A Harvard experiment showed that subjects taught complex finger movements like a piano scale recalled them much better after 12 hours’ sleep than 12 hours’ wakefulness. Another study showed that working into the night slowed thinking skills, both at the time and during the next day.

It boosts the immune system

A study of elderly people suffering depression found that those with disturbed sleep had fewer disease-fighting cells in their blood. Moreover, melatonin, produced when you sleep, is a cancer-fighting antioxidant. Night-shift workers, whose wake/sleep rhythms are disrupted, may have up to 70 times greater risk of breast cancer.

It can slow down ageing

Persistent sleep debt has been shown to affect carbohydrate metabolism and hormone function in a way that may increase the severity of age-related chronic disorders. In fact, a large-scale study concluded that people who sleep 6-7 hours a night lived longer than those sleeping less than 4.5 hours.

It could keep you orderly

If you’re a child, that is. The depression and low self-esteem often associated with just being a teenager actually correlate with sleep shortage. And young kids who sleep poorly are more than twice as likely to take to drink and drugs in adolescence.

No comments:

Post a Comment