Lack of sleep can harm your health. 7 to 9 hours a day is just right

(Author: Pan Huaizong, Sui Ande, Zhang Yafang, ETTV Financial News)

Not getting enough sleep, lack of concentration

The U.S. Institute of Health estimates that approximately 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from symptoms such as insufficient sleep and chronic sleep disorders. According to a 2011 Human Resources Bank survey of Taiwanese office workers, the average sleep time for office workers is only 6.2 hours, 68% of office workers believe they do not get enough sleep, 75.8% feel they are often tired and fatigued, and 56.7% have difficulty concentrating.

Dr. Ted Abel of the University of Pennsylvania published a study in The Journal of Neuroscience in 2011, pointing out that lack of sleep can increase the concentration of adenosine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Adenosine is related to physiological functions such as sleep, anxiety, cognition and memory, neural maturation, neural damage and degeneration. Increased adenosine concentration can lead to a decline in memory and cognitive ability. Strictly speaking, adenosine is the source of memory loss and inattention. Caffeine, on the contrary, can effectively reduce the effect of adenosine in a short period of time. However, long-term excessive use of caffeine will have more serious consequences.

Get enough sleep for 7 to 9 hours to reduce the incidence of chronic diseases

According to the survey, Taiwanese people believe that they are unhealthy, mainly due to lack of exercise, lack of sleep and being overweight. 77% of the respondents, including young people under 30 years old, believe that they are overweight and hope to lose weight. Nearly 60% of the people said that they do not have regular exercise habits, and 42% of them exercise no more than 1 hour a week.

Taiwanese people hope to have 8 hours of complete sleep, but the actual sleep hours are only 6.6 hours, 1.4 hours less than the expected value. Taiwanese people are not fat, but they are too demanding in the pursuit of weight loss. In addition, they owe too much "exercise debt" and "sleep debt", which makes people feel bad about their own health. You can stay healthy by maintaining a happy mood, getting enough sleep, exercising regularly and eliminating stress.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults need about 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. Adequate sleep not only allows the body to get enough rest, but also allows hormone secretion and metabolic rate to maintain a balanced state, thereby avoiding the occurrence of Metabolism Syndrome.

If you have been eating less and exercising more, but still have poor fat-loss effects, it may be due to long-term sleep debt or combined insomnia. Normal people will gradually develop "sleep debt" after staying up late or working overtime and not getting enough sleep. When the accumulated sleep debt is too much for the body to bear, it will force the body into a resting state, causing dozing off or even sudden sleep, resulting in poor work efficiency and even threats to oneself and public safety.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey report suggests that sleeping between 6 and 8 hours a day can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Sleeping less (<6 hours) can double the chance of stroke or heart attack and increase the risk of heart failure by 1.6 times.

Lack of sleep can cause unstable blood pressure, affect heartbeat, etc., and have adverse effects on the nervous system, diabetes, etc. However, those who sleep more than 10 hours a night are 2 times more likely to develop angina pectoris and 1.1 times more likely to develop coronary heart disease. So it seems that both excess and deficiency have an impact on us, and appropriate sleep time is the key to health preservation.

This article is provided by Kate Culture Publishing House and is excerpted from [57 Health Alumni Reunion: Breaking the Key 57 Health Myths! 】