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The Dangers of Not Getting the
Sleep Your Body Needs
National
traffic safety experts report that drivers who fall asleep at the wheel
cause more fatal accidents than drivers that are impaired by alcohol.
The demands of job and family on the average person today are largely
responsible for the numbers of people risking their lives and the lives
of others by driving when sleepy. The dangers of not getting the sleep
your body needs is not confined to your safety while driving. Depriving
your body of the sleep it needs poses a threat to the functioning of
your body, and to your physical and emotional health.
Suppressed
immune systems and an increased susceptibility to illness and disease
are dangers of not getting the sleep your body needs that begins to
occur with just a few missed hours of the sleep the body needs to
function properly. When illness and disease do strike, the body that has
not been getting the sleep it needs is less resistant to the affects and
stresses that illness and disease place on the body. Recovery from
typical illnesses such as colds and flu are prolonged, and survival
rates for people suffering from major diseases are significantly lowered
when the immune system is not able to function properly because of a
serious lacking in the sleep the body needs to power such bodily
functions.
Vulnerability to injuries and an overall weakening of the body are
further dangers of not getting the sleep your body needs. When the body
is weighed down by fatigue, your reactions are slowed and this increases
the likelihood for sustaining injuries through falls and not being able
to move away from dangers quickly.
A decrease
in mental processes such as thinking and retaining information, focus,
decision making, and the state of our emotions are further dangers posed
by not getting the sleep your body needs. The sleep deprived body can
not power the bodily functions that control these mental processes such
as producing the hormones the body uses to regulate emotions and to give
the brain the ability to collect, perceive, remember, evaluate, and
respond to different information and stimuli to the brain.
Quite often
the stress from the amount of demands the average person faces daily can
interfere with being able to go to sleep, or in the ability to sleep
through the night to get all of the sleep the body needs. Exercise is a
very good way to relieve the stress that can interfere with getting the
sleep your body needs. Personal Power Training,
www.personalpowertraining.net can help you to find the exercise that
can relieve your stress and allow you to get the sleep your body needs.
Feel free to look over the numerous exercise and health resources on our
website to find what may work best for you.
How much
sleep your body needs to escape from the dangers of not getting the
sleep your body needs may depend on your level of physical activity and
the nature of the demands that your job and family place upon you and
your stress level as a result of those demands. Experts generally
recommend that we get 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to give our
bodies the sleep it needs, but you may find that you need more sleep in
order to feel fully rested or that you feel fully rested with only 7
hours of sleep a night. Listen to what your body tells you in how rested
you feel with 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night. Increase your sleeping
hours if 7-10 hours of sleep does not help you to wake up feeling fully
rested. If you find yourself feeling sleepy throughout the day even with
7 to 10 hours of sleep nightly, for more than a week, consult your
doctor.
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