Sleep: An Essential Part of Reducing Stress Levels

Sleep, along with leading a healthy life style, is an essential part of reducing your stress levels. Sleep is a highly complex physiological process that is not fully understood. However, what is known is that sleep is absolutely crucial for our bodies and minds to be able to continue normal, healthy function.

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Sleep helps to restore and rejuvenate our bodies in the following areas:

• Body maintenance,
• Growth and development,
• Immune system boosting,
• Memory, learning and social processes, and,
• Nervous System,

Inadequate amounts of sleep and/or quality of sleep can have severe detrimental effects on health and brain function, and can cause a range of issues including:

• Frustration as a result of the lack of sleep at night (when everyone else in the house is sleeping),
• Sleepiness, tiredness and other issues resulting from the lack of sleep which manifest themselves during the day, which can cause serious disruptions in a person’s social, personal, and professional lives and severely limit their activities and independence.

As a result of these issues, even a lack of sleep over a short-period of time can cause rapid and serious increases in stress levels. When a lack of sleep occurs over long periods of time, then high levels of stress can develop, and these can cause serious complications.

Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) is a sleep disorder characterized by being awoken frequent during the night as a result of unpleasant burning and choking sensations which are caused by stomach acid rising upward into the throat area during sleep. This can disrupt sleep and also make people frightened to fall asleep because they fear subsequent GERD episodes. A range of factors can cause GERD, however being overweight is a prime cause.

Anything that causes a lack of sleep is also likely to cause elevated levels of stress, among other things. Maintaining a healthy weight and living a healthy life-style are essential for reducing your risk of Hypersomnia, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), and other sleep disorders. As such, maintaining a healthy weight and living a healthy life-style are essential for getting a good night’s sleep and for reducing your stress levels.

This means that we need to realize what we can and can’t change and learn to accept or deal with the things we cannot change, instead of allowing them to ruin our day or cause us stress.

Very important advice indeed, especially where stress is concerned.

Source

• https://www.sleepscore.com/how-to-rest-your-way-to-less-stress/
• https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/tips-reduce-stress
• https://www.stress.org/stress-and-sleep-how-to-master-stress-and-enjoy-restful-sleep-instantly

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