HOW MUCH SLEEP IS
REQUIRED
FOR GOOD HEALTH
Sleep is a very important part of human life. Our body and mind
are built and coordinated to have a fixed amount of sleep every night. Without
that sleep, the body clock and functions go off balance, concentration goes for
a toss, simple functions like walking, and counting and handling objects seem
like Herculean tasks. Many of us are missing sleep perhaps out of ignorance.
How many hours of sleep are required for
good health is important. Widely talked magic figure of sleep is 7-seven
hours of sleep. In fact,
hours of sleep requirement vary depending on different factors:
Age factor: New born babies (1-2 months old) need sleep
of 14-18 Hrs. Children (5-12 years old) need 10-11 Hrs. Adults need 7-9 Hrs. The
wide variation is obvious.
Activity factor: More sleep is required for highly active
people, who work restless. For example, log-distance runners need an hour of
extra sleep to repair the running related damage.
Sex factor: Women
do require more sleep than men. According to British sleep expert, women’s
brains typically require an extra 20 minutes of sleep each night to “recover”
from additional stresses-a reflection of the fact that women generally
multitask more than men.
Type of Diet: Plant
based diet (vegetarian) is much quicker and easier to digest. It needs less
help from the sleep. So, non-vegetarian diet requires more hours of sleep.
Body’s water intake: If
you drink more water during the day, your body has less effort to do at night
for digesting food. This means you need less sleep hours, if you are well
hydrated.
Yoga and meditation: They
reduce sleep requirement. Use meditation as a tool to improve the state of
mind. Yogis
need less sleep due to their ability to
manage their thoughts. Ofcourse ,their simple and uncomplicated life style and
vegetarian diet also helps. If we are
able to have fewer but more powerful
thoughts, we conserve our energy and can stay light & stress-free. Wiith
meditation & peaceful thoughts, if we can
rejuvenate ourselves, the hardwork to our “sleep factory” will be less to
replenish us. This will cut down sleep requirement.
Sleep quality: Improve
your Quality of sleep by improving quality of your thoughts. People complain
about having bad dreams. This is the result of not having done the work of
cleaning our sub-conscious. Filtering our thoughts, letting go of the past
& choosing to retain good memories are all ways in which we can help to
make our dreams sweet. If we would follow the rhythm of the day as nature
intended, we will be in tune with natural energies that surround us. Staying
awake at night throws us off balance. The body will function, but not
optimally.
Firstly before retiring to bed, it is important
to sit for a few moments of reflection to check on the day and see how positive
or otherwise we may have misused our precious energies. Therefore if you need
to ask forgiveness or apologise someone, we should. If you settle the karmic
accounts of the day, we will sleep with light heart.
Secondly, as we lie in bed imagine floating
off to a land of light, the home of the soul. This visualisation helps us to
realise that we are not just this body and paraphernalia that is connected with
it. Just as actors go home after their performance, so too we need to “take off
our costumes” and return home after a day’s performance! This world of soul is
a world of light, simple and quiet. Take thoughts up above to this place of
silence and visualise the body resting down below. In the morning, imagine that
I , the soul, have come down from this world of light, free from all worldly concerns, and ready and eager to play today’s
scenes on the stage of the world.
Sleep Timing:
The average person needs 7-8 hours of sleep per night,
although the timing of such sleep also plays an important role. You'll be most
rejuvenated if you go to bed early and don't sleep more than 8 hours. If you
stay up late and compensate by sleeping late, you'll wake up lethargic and have
trouble focusing. If you have the opportunity, take 10-20 minute naps when you
are hit with a wave of drowsiness. Anything longer will make you lethargic, but
a short nap will refresh you.
Timing of night meal: Don't lie down immediately after taking meal. It is
a very bad habit.Try to finish your night meal early and keep a gap of 1 to 1.5
Hours before going to bed. Otherwise the digestion of food takes longer time,
affecting the sleep.
How to cover up the missed sleep hours: One night, if you are not able
to get the requisite amount of sleep, there is no need to worry or be stressful
all day about it. Even after missing whole night sleep, you don't need to go to
sleep for 7+7 =14 hours during the following night. It is only the deep,
refreshing sleep that you need to catch up on, so you need to recoup only about
a third to a half of what you missed.
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