Victor Daniel Gomez

Personal Trainer, American Council On Exercise (ACE)

Fitness Nutrition Specialist, ACE

Senior-Fitness Specialist, National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)

Author, Strong And Fit At Sixty

Sleep

Sleep.

Sleep is a complex subject that is better talked about by medically trained professionals. But it is important to give it a mention. It may turn out that Sleep is the most important aspect of Health.

It is estimated that there are about seventy million people in the United States that suffer from some form of chronic sleep deprivation.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults get 7-9 hours of sleep per night to restore their body, rebuild muscle and replenish their vitality physically and mentally.

 In a perfect world we get 8 hours of sleep. To keep things uncomplicated let’s say we do get 8 hours of sleep. That would mean that we spend a third of our lives sleeping.

Or to put it in a more immediate context we spend a third of our 24-hour day in sleep. We don’t spend another third of the day exercising for 8 hours and we don’t spend the last third of our day eating for 8 hours.

Sleep is as important for good health as diet and exercise.

Not getting enough quality sleep regularly raises the risk of many diseases and disorders such as developing both physical and mental health issues like obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression, to name a few undesirable effects.

Good sleep improves your brain performance and mood.

Studies have shown that there is a link between poor sleep and an increase in dementia because the cleaning system of the brain, known as the glymphatic system, takes 7-8 hours to flush toxins out of the brain and the rest of the Central Nervous System during sleep. Reduced sleep time will result in your brain functioning at a less-than-optimal level.

If you have a sleepless night, you can try and catch up on some sleep by taking a snooze later in the day but, you can’t bank sleep hours.

For example, it does not work that you might try to sleep-in for 10 hours one night because you are going to binge-watch your favorite show on TV late into the following night.

You either have healthy sleep hours or diminished sleep hours (negative sleep hours) but you do not have added sleep hours banked in reserve for future diminished sleep hours.