
Of all the things we do to keep our bodies in top shape, like eating healthy and exercising, sleep is an area that is often overlooked.
A little bit of sleep loss probably won’t be detrimental to your health in the short term, but it may make you feel tired, grumpy and irritable.
Once sleep deprivation occurs with greater frequency, however, it can begin to have a serious impact on your health – and your immune system.
Sleep is the time when our body is able to effectively “shut down”.
There are several different types of sleep:
In normal sleep we go through these stages throughout the night, starting with shallow sleep, moving down into deep sleep and then REM and repeating the cycle every ninety minutes.
During deep sleep, parts of the brain associated with arousal activity and muscle movement slow down. Deep sleep is restorative, meaning it’s a time for our body to repair and rejuvenate itself. Deep sleep is predominantly a time when our stress-response is turned off.
In deep sleep, our glucocorticoid levels go down. Glucocorticoids are a class of steroid hormones secreted from the adrenal glands during stress. If we are chronically sleep deprived, these stress hormones will not experience a sleep-induced decline and their levels will instead rise - and increased stress response is the result.
Some research has shown that immune response is impaired by sleep loss and that sleep disorders are commonly associated with chronic inflammatory diseases. A good night’s sleep allows us to repair, restore and rejuvenate our bodies. Our stress response is turned off and we can relax.
Getting a good night’s sleep is important to maintain optimum health, a healthy immune system and to protect other bodily systems which begin to suffer when sleep loss is chronic.
For more information on the role that stress plays in immunity you can read Jodi’s article: Is stress making you ill?
Getting yourself into a good sleep pattern and routine is important especially for those who are poor sleepers.
References available on request