I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?
Ernest Hemingway
Insomnia affects millions. Sometimes the ineffective sleep occurs temporarily and sometimes problem lasts life-times. Poor sleep robs vitality, sensibility, and creativity. Poor sleep causes cascades of medical problems that sometimes seem remote and unrelated. Insomnia represents one of the underecognized stressors to our system.
Sleep quality and insomnia research is an active field. A quick google search for current insomnia research reveals numerous very current avenues of ongoing study.
Key areas of research include looking at the relationship between quantity and quality of sleep and several degenerative brain disorders such as: alzheimers, general dementia, parkinsons disease, heart disease, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and cancer.
Insomnia Negatives
First off, poor sleep affects immune function. Poor immune function has a myriad of affects throughout the body. Insomnia suffers have more illnesses, hypertension, weight problems, and cancer. It’s no wonder our body craves sleep when we’re sick according to this latest research.
Insomnia affects memory later in life. Recent studies show clear relationships between memory decline and individuals getting either TOO MUCH or TOO LITTLE sleep. In fact, routinely getting less than 6 hours or greater than 8 hours nightly appear to trigger greater memory deficits as we age.
These observations likely stem from some of the latest theories on memory which suggest memories require processing that occurs during specific portions of sleep. Insomnia leads to limited “processing” windows and therefore a progression of perceived memory decline.
When experiencing a disease, insomnia can have a dramatic effect on outcomes. In the May 2nd, 2014 edition of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine research reported a dramatic improvement in advanced breast cancer survival in women with “Efficient” sleep ratios. (Sleep Ratio = Effective sleep / Time in bed) The improved mortality numbers were dramatic (68.9 months survival vs 33.2 months for insomniacs!!)
Summary
Quality sleep leads to improved immune function, greater vitality, and resilience. Poor sleep exacerbates multiple diseases and can independently worsen many. If you have specific
Stay tuned to the NRGTRIBE.com. In part two I’m going to cover typical causes of insomnia as well as ways you can improve sleep naturally.