If you have to make adjustments and amendments in life so that you can get a good night’s sleep, it is worth doing this – it isn’t just so that you are well rested and get up refreshed to face another day, you need good quality sleep for a number of reasons.
Make the time and the effort to give yourself a good night’s sleep. Sleep is healing and restoring and remember it is free and well worth making the effort for! Use the ‘refreshed’ test to gauge if you got enough sleep – if you wake alert and refreshed in the morning, then you are probably getting enough rest and sleep is working for you in the following ways:
- Proper growth hormone production happens when the body is at rest. This helps the body absorb important nutrients and also helps in cell renewal and healing. The hormone also helps to stimulate the tissues of the bone marrow, to strengthen the body’s immune system.
- The hormone Melatonin is also produced when asleep. This hormone slows down growth rates of tumors, curbs infection and improves the functioning of the immune system. It increases the antibody content of one’s saliva as well.
- Improper, incomplete or insufficient (interrupted) sleep can cause one to develop chronic fatigue symptoms and may even lead to fibromyalgia.
