Sleep is total restoration and rejuvenation of the body and mind. Sleep is essential in preventing the aging process and maintaining optimum health.
Weintraub (2006) found research on sleep deprivation showing that even at six hours a night, many changes are occurring in the body. Insulin rises to pre-diabetes levels, and there’s an astonishing increase in heart disease. (Maher) 2006 found insomnia is the inability to sleep, a condition in which many people deal with today.
Stress, too much caffeine, depression, changes in work shifts, and pain from medical problems, such as arthritis can trigger insomnia. Poor sleep is related to large amounts of anxiety causing stress, worry, and tension, and especially if marked by failing memory, consider adding the combination of Phosphatidylserine and DHEA. These are ‘nootropics’ (smart nutrients) which improve learning and memory, reduce fatty deposits in aging nerve cells (lipofuscin), and even support nerve and memory regeneration while relieving stress caused depression. They also counter the effect of excess cortisol, the “great brain ager.”
Risk Of Disease:
Winkelman (2004) also found that people who are sleep deprived have elevated levels of substances in the blood that indicate a heightened state of inflammation in the body, which has emerged as a significant risk factor for heart disease, stroke, cancer.
This study showed for the first time that getting less sleep may increase your risk of having a heart attack, which is the number one killer. Other studies have found that sleep influences the functioning of the lining inside blood vessels, which could explain why people are most prone to heart attacks and strokes during early morning hours.
Research is finding that lack of sleep can cause cancer. Schernhammer (2005) researched and found that people who work at night appear unusually prone to breast and colon cancer, researchers investigating the possible explanation for this association found exposure to light at night reduces levels of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is believed to protect against disease by affecting levels of other hormones, such as estrogen.
What is melatonin?
Melatonin is a hormone made by the pineal gland, a small gland in the brain. Melatonin helps control your sleep and wake cycles. Minimal amounts of it are found in foods such as meats, grains, fruits, and vegetables. You can also buy it as a supplement.
What does natural melatonin do in the body?
Your body has its internal clock that controls your natural cycle of sleeping and waking hours. In part, your body clock controls how much melatonin your body makes. Typically, melatonin levels begin to rise in the mid- to late evening, remain high for most of the night, and then drop in the early morning hours.
Light affects how much melatonin your body produces. During the shorter days of the winter months, your body may produce melatonin either earlier or later in the day than usual. This change can lead to symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or winter depression.
Natural melatonin levels slowly drop with age. Some older adults make minimal amounts of it or none at all.
Final Thoughts
Sleep is essential in helping middle-aged individuals minimize the adverse effects of aging. Lack of sleep can cause serious health problems which are accelerating the aging process. The absence of the proper amount of sleep can cause diabetes, memory loss, high blood pressure, anxiety, chronic fatigue, depression, obesity, cancer, increased cortisol levels, and heart disease.
Research has shown that lack of sleep causes a spike in cortisol. This is serious in minimizing the adverse effects of aging since an increase in cortisol levels are proven to accelerate the aging process!
To live a healthy life and to slow down the aging process, sleep is essential. Sleep strengthens and rejuvenates the heart and body. Research has found that nine solid hours of noninterrupted sleep prevents the aging process.
Goh (2006) found that growth hormone has been called the elixir of youth, and is released when the body is sleeping. The best time to get the “Elixir of Youth” (natural growth hormone) is going to sleep between the times of 10 PM and midnight. By going to sleep at the correct time and getting at least nine hours of sleep a night, you are effectively minimizing the adverse effects of aging.
P.S. Like and share this post with your peers to spread the love.
Comment (1)
Visitor Rating: 5 Stars
Comments are closed.