The Importance of Sleep

Everyone knows that sleep is important. Our mothers used to hammer into us how important it was to get the 8 hours. We never listened and did what we liked. In recent years, not a lot has changed in the behaviours of children and teenagers in their sleep habits, but what has changed is the strength of the research on just how important that sleep is. There was cliché that the three pillars of good health are diet, exercise and sleep. A number of experts have started to comment that sleep may be the most important of the three.

Sleep has shown to be extremely important in the development memory so plays an important part for the students when they are learning. Unfortunately, students tend to be of the age group that often does not get adequate sleep and have good sleep habits. It can be an ongoing battle for parents who try to develop good sleep habits in the children to help facilitate their learning.

Poor sleep has been linked to multiple medical conditions such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and fibromyalgia. Previously it was considered that poor sleep may be a consequence of these conditions, but the most recent research is pointing to poor sleep perhaps playing a role in the cause or increased risk for developing these conditions. This is especially the case for a number of psychiatric conditions in which sleep is highly correlated to symptoms and the most recent research exploring the role poor sleep may play in the cause of the conditions or part of the reason for triggering an episode in some of the psychiatric disorders.

Another example is that the importance of sleep for athletes has been shown in multiple studies. The research has linked the quality of sleep to the ability to recover from a hard training session so that the athlete is better prepared for the next training session, so that they can improve more. The research has also linked the quality if sleep to performance in competitive events. It has been suggested that Usain Bolt used to take a nap prior to the finals in 100m sprints. Those athletes with poorer sleep have also shown to be at much greater risk for developing an injury and if the sleep continues to be poor the recovery from that injury will take longer.

There is plenty advice available on how to develop good sleep habits to get the appropriate amount and quality of sleep to develop good memory for leaning, to decrease the risk of developing some medical conditions and help recovery from some medical problems. It is also important for athlete to enhance performance, train better and decrease the chance of getting an injury. There are many strategies that sleep health professionals will use to help people get the right quantity and quality of sleep. Those who have ongoing problems with sleep are often bought into a sleep lab to be hooked up to a variety of monitoring devices and then try to sleep in the lab to get to the bottom of the problem.

Craig Payne is a University lecturer, runner, cynic, researcher, skeptic, forum admin, woo basher, clinician, rabble-rouser, blogger and a dad.