How much sleep do we need?

This depends mainly on how old we are. * Babies sleep for about 17 hours each day. * Older children only need 9 or 10 hours a night. * Most adults need around 7-8 hours sleep each night. * Older people need the same amount of sleep, but will often only have one period of deep sleep during the night, usually in the first 3 or 4 hours, after which they wake more easily. We also tend to dream less as we get older. There are also differences between people of the same age. Most of us need 7-8 hours a night, but some (a few) people can get by with only 3 hours a night. It's not helpful to regularly sleep more than 7-8 hours each night. The short periods of being awake feel much longer than they really are. So it's easy to feel that we are not sleeping as much as we actually are. What if I don't sleep? It's easy to worry when you can't sleep. The occasional night without sleep will make you feel tired the next day, but it won't harm your physical or mental health. However, after several sleepless nights, you will start to find that: * you are tired all the time * you drop off during the day * you find it difficult to concentrate * you find it hard to make decisions * you start to feel depressed.
Links: http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/mentalhealthproblems/sleep... ===========================================================

Sleep ! a vital requirement for " brain to continue to function normally. It is said that a person deprived of sleep would die earlier than a person deprived of drinking water. Newly born Infants sleep all the time and wake only for feeding. On the other hand, Old people sleep much less and fret about their beds restlessly during long nights. Adequate sleep duration varies from individual to individual, but an average adult makes do with 7 to 8 hours of sleep a day. Sleep is a revitalizer of the brain much like the defragmentation function is for the computer hard disk. The brain needs to reset itself after loading vast amount of data through the five senses and processing much of that data. The quality of the sleep is also therefore important. Just as defragmentation would become inefficient if the process is interrupted, a deep sleep is better for the health of the brain. Again just as a hard disk which has been working hard would take more time to get defragmented, a brain which has been busy processing data and emotions would need more rest. Therefore personality types also matter and some of these traits are inherited. Sleep time to some extent also gets treated cumulatively. If one has slept less during week days, the time could be made up during the weekends. sanjay9negi@hotmail.com

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There ! no $andard "en%gh" sleep, it ! dependant per person.

Some persons need 10 hours of sleep, while others are fine with 4 hours a day. I think the best way to find YOUR amount of sleep is just listen to your body. If you sleep 6 hours a day on average, wake up in the morning and feel like you can conquer the world, 6 hours seems to be enough. If you are tired all day, can't keep your thoughts to your work, close your eyes watching television, 6 hours is probably not enough for you. Just don't focus on the figure itself to much and find out what your body (and mind) needs. ===================================================

Sleep more to live more

Recently, many of us must have heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das of Mumbai, CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India. He was 42. He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandras Carter Road. Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young

kids. The Real Reason While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress that is a common element in most of our lives. However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. He admitted that he would love to get more sleep and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled. Lack of Sleep Some Facts : Short sleep duration of less than 5 hours a day increases the risk for high Blood pressure by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Young people in the age group of 25 to 49 years are twice as likely to get high Blood Pressure if they sleep less. Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. The reason for the same is complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Just one night of sleep loss increases number of toxic substances in body such as Interleukin- 6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease.

Ideal Sleep Sleep is composed of two stages: REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times. The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During non-REM sleep, many of the restorative functions of sleep occur. Hormones are released which help the body rebuild itself from damage done during the day. During REM sleep, memories and thoughts from the day are processed. REM sleep is the stage of sleep in which vivid dreams occur. The purpose of dreaming is not well understood, but it probably relates to processing mental information that was received during the day. During REM sleep, we normally lose the use of our limb muscles. Thus, we have an active mind in an inactive body. This normal loss of muscle activity in REM (or dream) sleep helps prevent us from acting out our dreams. For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. Conclusion: Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising, maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep. Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance.
Lead for this content was shared with GConnect by Shri.A.Jebastin, Intelligence Officer, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Tuticorin, Tamilnadu =================================================================