Which is More Important to your Health?
Is diet, exercise or sleep more important to your health? If you said sleep, you are right. All three are very important elements; however, it has been shown that sleep deprivation will kill you in about the same amount of time that food deprivation and the disease it can happen because of it.
According to Dr. Matt Walker, a specialist in sleep from Cal Berkley and neuroscientist: Sleep is the single most effective method to reset your brain and body health. If I deprived you of sleep, exercise, water, or food for twenty-four hours and map your brain… A lack of sleep BY FAR will affect your brain more significantly. He states: Sleep is foundational to exercise and diet. He goes on to say that below six hours of sleep per night for a week will distort your genes. He states further: Many are concerned about genetically modified embryos and cells. Yet, when we do not get enough sleep, we are genetically modifying ourselves. As an example: When changing to Daylight savings time in spring there is a 24% increase in relative heart attack risks the next day, suicides and road accidents, and judges dole out harsher sentences. Fallback in the fall = 20% reduction.
What causes us to sleep poorly? Sleep has an image problem = lazy. People say you can sleep when you are dead. We need to change the cultural appreciation of sleep. Better sleep for 7-9 hours is the best health insurance improvement. There are laws that prevent the use of drugs, as well as restriction on alcohol use there are none for lack of sleep. Yet the estimated cost to businesses each year is a lost 4.11 billion in productivity in US.
The chief reasons for lack of sleep: Anxiety and Stress. They are toxic to sleep. We constantly inspect, and rarely reflect on what is affecting us.
To listen to the Lewis Howes podcast with Dr. Walker click https://link.chtbl.com/1154-sm. I also have a pdf I will send to you if you contact me - five brain hacks to improve your sleep.
