Hello everyone, how are you doing on this beautiful evening? This is the official end of the week and it is the ideal time to say “Thank God It’s Friday!”
And so today, as we go forth into the weekend to rest before the next week commences, there is something I would very much like to share with you. Something that I believe is very much overlooked in our society and this can have a detrimental effect on our health and general wellbeing.
And what is it? Sleep.
There is this misconception that people have, they believe that a hardworking person is meant to sleep for short amounts of time at a stretch. Between two to four hours maximum. Anymore and that will mean you are lazy and will not make it.
And I am here to tell you that, it is exactly as I called it; a misconception.
As a matter of fact, two to four hours of sleep health-wise is considered to be too little seeing as that does not provide the body with enough time to rest in preparation for the next day. What will this mean, it means that your body will still be tired even after you have woken up, your body will still need that sleep badly so you will be feeling sleepy. Your brain will not be able to function properly and your thoughts will be scattered because you need sleep.
But these are just the easy ones. Lack of sufficient sleep can be a major factor in causing life-threatening diseases. Risks of high blood pressure and the likes have a higher probability of occurring when a person deprives his body of sleep.
And when the body is healthy, if deprived of sleep for so long, the body will take it by force. This can be by making you fall asleep, the sleep will be so sweet and so deep that if an earthquake happened you would not feel it. And it would go on for such a long time. But by the time you wake, you will be refreshed and be like new.
But when the body is not healthy, it can cause many health issues that will require getting admitted into the hospital.
Prevention is always better than cure.
So, in that case, what is the ideal number of hours one is to spend sleeping?
Based on research, at night one is meant to spend nothing less than eight hours sleep. This is the time that is calculated to be enough for the body to rest fitfully and be ready for the action of the next day. It can be more, but it mostly depends on your schedule and the kind of person you are. But it is advised that you do not sleep for less than eight hours.
But there is also something like excessive sleep. This is when you sleep for too long. We are talking about twelve hours and above. Unless you have a medical condition, then you have no business being on the bed for twelve hours. It can be characterized as laziness and it needs to be curtailed.
So, my dear friends, I ask that you try to strike a balance right. Give yourself enough sleep, not too little and not too much. Just enough. And your body and life, in general, will thank you for it.
Image by David Clode
Thank you for reading this, till we meet in the next post.
