National traffic safety experts report that drivers who fall asleep at the wheel cause more fatal accidents than drivers that are impaired by alcohol. The demands of job and family on the average person today are largely responsible for the numbers of people risking their lives and the lives of others by driving when sleepy. The dangers of not getting the sleep your body needs is not confined to your safety while driving. Depriving your body of the sleep it needs poses a threat to the functioning of your body, and to your physical and emotional health.
Suppressed immune systems and an increased susceptibility to illness and disease are dangers of not getting the sleep your body needs that begins to occur with just a few missed hours of the sleep the body needs to function properly. When illness and disease do strike, the body that has not been getting the sleep it needs is less resistant to the affects and stresses that illness and disease place on the body. Recovery from typical illnesses such as colds and flu are prolonged, and survival rates for people suffering from major diseases are significantly lowered when the immune system is not able to function properly because of a serious lacking in the sleep the body needs to power such bodily functions.
Vulnerability to injuries and an overall weakening of the body are further dangers of not getting the sleep your body needs. When the body is weighed down by fatigue, your reactions are slowed and this increases the likelihood for sustaining injuries through falls and not being able to move away from dangers quickly.
A decrease in mental processes such as thinking and retaining information, focus, decision making, and the state of our emotions are further dangers posed by not getting the sleep your body needs. The sleep deprived body can not power the bodily functions that control these mental processes such as producing the hormones the body uses to regulate emotions and to give the brain the ability to collect, perceive, remember, evaluate, and respond to different information and stimuli to the brain.
Quite often the stress from the amount of demands the average person faces daily can interfere with being able to go to sleep, or in the ability to sleep through the night to get all of the sleep the body needs. Exercise is a very good way to relieve the stress that can interfere with getting the sleep your body needs. Personal Power Training, www.personalpowertraining.net can help you to find the exercise that can relieve your stress and allow you to get the sleep your body needs. Feel free to look over the numerous exercise and health resources on our website to find what may work best for you.
How much sleep your body needs to escape from the dangers of not getting the sleep your body needs may depend on your level of physical activity and the nature of the demands that your job and family place upon you and your stress level as a result of those demands. Experts generally recommend that we get 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to give our bodies the sleep it needs, but you may find that you need more sleep in order to feel fully rested or that you feel fully rested with only 7 hours of sleep a night. Listen to what your body tells you in how rested you feel with 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night. Increase your sleeping hours if 7-10 hours of sleep does not help you to wake up feeling fully rested. If you find yourself feeling sleepy throughout the day even with 7 to 10 hours of sleep nightly, for more than a week, consult your doctor.
