“In the end, it’s all a question of balance” - Rohinton Mistry

Indian Council for Medical Research recently published an article to discuss “the ideal duration to sleep, eat and exercise” for more information, check out ICMR article.  While this may seem like a common sense to many of us but most of our health concerns stems from not getting the right balance in the basic lifestyle factors. Sleep as we know has been the primary agent for causing chronic conditions, acute heart attacks and strokes and associated risks in developing other comorbidities. Despite knowing about sleep related health, why is it that no one is able to get it right? Is it ignorance or just mere negligence? I believe, the latter is true for most of us. Let’s re-emphasis on the sleep health recommendations given by ICMR. 

Sleep health is so basic that all you need to keep in mind is just putting your other responsibilities aside and making sleep a priority. But ICMR emphasis that getting number of hours of sleep is not what we should be chasing rather the quality. What is it about the quality? When we keep emphasizing on quality, all we mean by is the need for the amount of deep sleep you should be having. Any lack of deep sleep and REM sleep would lead to sleep deprivation in turn were associated with DNA damage, ICMR quotes. 

What is a DNA damage and how it might affect you? A report published in ‘the Hindu’ in which ICMR researchers quote that, ‘sleep deprivation were seen to be associated with DNA damage’. This was backed up by a study conducted in the University of Hong Kong where they found that night shift workers showed increased DNA damage post sleep deprivation. And DNA damage in turn would lead to other diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases etc. Due to these risks posed, researchers and professionals warn against the ‘downsides of sleep deprivation’. 

But have you wondered, why would it actually cause DNA damage? Because that seems like a lot for just missing sleep. Isn’t it? That’s because, your sleep actually does highly complex functions when you are asleep. Take it as a factory reset. Failing to reset leads to lack thereof and eventually disruption of regular activities. During sleep, your body goes through a series of protein synthesis, hormone regularization, restoration, metabolic functions, brain consolidation process and much more. One day’s of these work would need 4 days to compensate. So beware! 

Take Home Message

• * You need to allocate time for basic things if you intend to lead a healthy and fulfilling life, ICMR quotes. 

• * Sleep is a central important factor for all health promoting behaviors. 

• * Disruption in quality of sleep would lead to increased risk to many chronic health conditions. 

• * Sleep deprivation isn’t a luxury, its a cost you pay for your life. 

• * ICMR finds, sleep deprivation leads to DNA damage in turn causes life threatening conditions. 

• Always balance your sleep, exercise and diet for a more healthy and happier life. 

Happy Sleeping! 

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