What is healthy sleep?

Healthy sleep is the ability to get enough hours of relatively uninterrupted sleep each night and maintain a consistent sleep schedule that suits your body. For most adults, healthy sleep means:

  • At least seven hours of sleep each night

  • Not waking up frequently at night

  • Bedtime routine

  • Waking up refreshed in the morning

A lack of healthy sleep (chronic sleep deprivation) can increase the risk for health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression. It can also affect your immune system, reducing your body’s ability to fight infections and diseases.

You may be unable to control all factors that interfere with your sleep. However, you can adopt habits that encourage better sleep with the following simple tips:

  • Maintain a consistent sleep schedule

  • Monitor eating and drinking habits such as heavy meals, nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol.

  • Perform relaxing activities before bed

  • Limit naps to no more than one hour per day and avoid napping late.

  • Include physical activity in your daily routine

  • Resolve your worries before bedtime

Benefits Of Healthy Sleep

Your body has a lot to accomplish while you sleep. But to get it done, it takes healthy sleep. With the proper quantity and quality of sleep every night, you can reap several benefits:

Benefits of healthy sleep include:

  • Lower your risk for serious health problems like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease..

  • Think more clearly and do better in school and or work.

  • Get along better with people.

  • Maintain a healthy weight.

  • Reduce stress.

  • Get sick less often.

  • Improve your mood.

Also, healthy sleep is critical to thinking, reacting quickly, and creating memories. The pathways in the brain that help us learn and remember are very active when we sleep. Studies show that people who are taught mentally challenging tasks do better after a good night’s sleep. Other research suggests that healthy sleep is necessary for creative problem-solving.

Major Sleep Disorders

  • Insomnia occurs when you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or do not feel refreshed in the morning.

  • Hypersomnias (or Excessive Sleepiness) are a group of sleep disorders that cause a person to be overly sleepy. People with hypersomnia may fall asleep at inconvenient or dangerous times, such as at work or while driving.

  • Narcolepsy makes you feel overwhelmingly tired and has the potential for uncontrollable sleep attacks.

  • Parasomnias are a group of sleep disorders involving unwanted events or experiences that occur while you fall asleep, sleep, or wake up.

  • Obstructive Sleep Apnea causes you to stop breathing during sleep because of obstructions in the airway.

  • Sleep-Related Movement Disorders involve grinding, movement of legs, muscles, etc.