Catching Enough Zzzz’s

The time we spend sleeping is the most important time of the 24 hours in each day. Yet some people consider sleep a low priority. They try to stay awake as much as they can to do more work, watch television, or fit other things into their busy day. Then there are some that experience continual interrupted sleep, waking up several times during the night. Many do not realize that sleep effects the entire body.

In Chinese Medicine there are three things that cause health problems: 1. Excess=doing something too much, 2. Deficient=doing not enough of something, 3. Accident. So what’s good for you can also be bad for you if you do too much of it or not enough. When we chronically don’t get enough sleep, it can affect the way we think, behave, and perform at work or school. It also can lead to poor concentration and poor judgment, which puts us at risk for accidents and injuries. Too much sleep can cause us to be overly tired and can put one at risk for obesity.

When we sleep our body goes through a regeneration process. Our organs need to regenerate every day and especially during the night. The organs that regenerate during the night time hours require us to sleep in order for them to regenerate. If we do not allow our bodies to go through this process, we will begin to see a decline in our health over time.

Enough sleep is determined upon how we feel when we wake up. Some people require 9 hours, some 8 and others 7. We should feel refreshed and ready to go in the morning, not sluggish and exhausted. If we feel exhausted on a regular basis, no matter how many hours of sleep we get, this can be a symptom of an imbalance in our health. A health checkup should be considered immediately. If let go for too long, other health problems will begin to develop.