We all know that feeling of not getting enough sleep that can leave you tired and irritable throughout the day. A good night’s sleep is essential for well being, but did you know that without enough sleep we are seriously hindering the body’s ability to naturally rejuvenate itself? Insufficient sleep can cause long-term damage not only to our health, but may also be partly responsible for premature aging. The following information looks at the effects that a lack of sleep can have on our health and natural beauty.
- During the night the body goes into repair mode, eliminating toxins and getting hormones functioning correctly. If we are deprived of sleep, the body’s natural ability to heal becomes impaired, which can lead to a whole host of emotional and physical conditions.
- Touted by many celebrities as the anti-aging, skin-rejuvenating treatment of the future, the body’s growth hormone is effectively produced whilst we sleep. It has numerous roles within the body helping to rejuvenate the liver, stimulating cellular renewal, regenerating skin tissue and cells and helping to convert fat to muscle. If you are deprived of sleep the growth hormone’s beneficial actions become inhibited.
- Many people who are familiar with the term free radicals know that they are responsible for undermining the health of our skin cells, doing unseen damage within the body and to our natural beauty. However, not many people realize that free radicals can also occur in the brain as well. The very function of sleeping for eight hours or more acts as an antioxidant, mopping up any free radicals within the brain, but depriving yourself of sleep means the clean up is never going to be complete, which is why chronic sleep deprivation appears to accelerate aging of the brain.
As you can see, a lack of sleep can cause a laundry list of health problems. As the body’s systems start to malfunction, combined with the diminished opportunity to secrete the human growth hormone and the proliferation of free radicals scavenging within the brain, sleep deprivation can play a significant role in the degeneration of aging, which is why it is so important that we all get our beauty sleep.