How long can you go without sleep?
What happens if you don’t sleep for 2 to 3 days? Certainly, effects of sleep deprivation will set in; there will be a toll on your energy level, mood, work output, fatigue, weakness, not thinking clearly, or even hallucinations.
No doubt, “sleep is the best medicine”. After all, it is not for nothing that the symptoms of a cold often disappear without a trace, if a person sleeps well.
Guesses are one thing, and facts are another. Scientists have been able to establish how sleep improves immunity, scientifically in many of their experiments and researches.
The relationship between sleep and immunity
During sleep, the immune system provides “maintenance” of the body. This statement was confirmed by a team of scientists from the United States. For 5 years they controlled the condition of 165 volunteers, infecting them with viruses by the artificial way. As it turned out, people who slept up to 6 hours a day fell ill 5 times more often than those who slept 7-8 hours. They also recovered more slowly and fell ill regularly.
The study leader, Professor Prater, formulated the following conclusion: “Lack of sleep increases the risk of catching a cold more than other factors.
It does not matter how old a person is, what kind of work he has, whether he has bad habits – the sleep factor is the more important.”
In the 1990s, scientists from Chicago conducted an experiment on rodents. They were deprived of sleep, and after 3 days, 50% of the mice died. Even after a full sleep, most of the remaining experimental subjects suffered the same fate. At the autopsy, the researchers saw a strange picture: the stomachs of the dead rodents were dotted with deep ulcers.
Conclusion: lack of sleep gradually leads to the complete destruction of immunity.
The formation of immunological memory during sleep
The mechanism for improving immunity during sleep was researched by German scientists. They studied the processes that occur in the immune system at the stage of slow deep sleep, and found that at this moment immunological memory is formed and strengthened.
When a person is asleep, immune T cells systematize and remember “information” about the foreign agents they have encountered in a day. Upon subsequent penetration of pathogenic microbes into the body, T cells recognize their individual fragments and respond to the invasion by the active production of antibodies.
While, If a person sleeps insufficiently or intermittently, the immune system focuses on the wrong fragments of foreign microorganisms, which leads to an inadequate formation of immunological memory. As a result, T cells are mistaken in the recognition of pathogenic particles, and there is an increased risk of getting sick.
How much to sleep to increase immunity?
Healthy sleep lasts from 6 to 8 hours. The quality of sleep affects the protective functions of the body no less than the quantity. It is advisable to get into bed before 22.30, since from 23.00 to 01.00 melatonin, a hormone that stimulates the immune system, is more actively produced.
Melatonin is worse produced in the light, so it is better to sleep in the dark or at least hang curtains.
On average, a person sleeps a third of his life. But, planning to extend the period of wakefulness, remember how this will harm the immune system and health. Your body needs sleep to function optimally, both on a physical and mental level.
In sickness or in health, a compromise on your sleep is a compromise on your health. Getting enough sleep daily is perhaps the first step of getting your health back on track.
Homeopath Oluwafunmise
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