The Pressure of Sleep Deficiency

"Sleep is a natural state of bodily rest observed in human and other animals."

- Quoted from Wikipedia

Indeed, sleep is essential to us human. As we all know,sleeping is a must, without sufficient sleep, or if one experiences sleeping difficulties, the consequence could be shown very clearly on his or her face.

Recently, a research was being conducted in the United States, and the researchers found that sleep deprivation could increase a person's risk of developing high blood pressure.

The US researchers monitored over 500 people in their middle age for 5 years. Very gratefully, these researches sincerely hope that with this new discovery of risk factor, more and more people could be prevented from developing high blood pressure, a disease which accounts for 7 million deaths worldwide.

Researchers have found a link between self-reported hours of sleep with high blood pressure. This particular research is known as the first study to look at both cross-sectional and longitudinal measurements of blood pressure and sleeping patterns.

There are a few important points which we could benefit from the results of the study:

1. Participants who had less sleep or sleeping patterns with lower qualities were found to have higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings.
2. Less sleep or low quality sleeping patterns could cause adverse effects in systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings over a 5-year period.
3. After 5 years, each hour less of sleep was linked to a 37% of higher chance in developing high blood pressure.

These results clearly show that sleeping is really vital to our health and of course, links very closely to our heartbeat patterns. Very possibly, without having sufficient sleep, we might experience more and more complications which could cause further adverse effects to our health, notably diseases pertain to our hearts.

For further information, this abstract provides an eagle view on the research being done by those US researchers. The article has been published in the 8th June issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Very frequently, we appear to be too busy with our daily routine, suffering immense pressure from your work and family matters, which could possibly cause inevitable frustration in you. As a result, you might not able to sleep well, your mind goes racing. What can you do? Below are a few tips on how to sleep well:

• Sleep only when you are sleepy
  
• Refrain from consuming caffeine/alcoholic beverages at least 4 to 6 hours before sleep
• Take a hot bath 90 minutes before sleep (it eases and helps you to sleep better when the higher temperature you experienced right after you took a hot bath, drops to a lower temperature)
• Ensure that your room is quiet, comfortable, and most importantly, dark (our body gets awake or sleepy very easily with the intensity of light)
• Avoid taking naps (Naps could cause you grow tired when you are preparing for your sleep at night. Instead of taking long naps, try taking short naps in 20 minutes, it sharpens your mind tremendously)
• Follow your very own biological clock (That is, get up and go to the bed at the same time, everyday)
• Consume GT&F Milk Powder before sleep has "lullaby effect" (Milk provides you tryptophan, an essential amino acid which will next converted into serotonin, a substance which tranquilizes your mind and soul, thus aids you to fall asleep very much easier)