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When it comes to fighting sickness, there is one thing you always hear from your doctor; “Get plenty of rest.” While sleep won’t necessarily keep you from getting sick, lack of sleep definitely has an impact on your immune system, which can leave you vulnerable to sickness.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at sleep, the immune system, and how sleep deprivation impacts our immune system’s ability to function at its best.
We often think of the canned response, “get seven to eight hours of sleep per night” when it comes to getting enough sleep, but it isn’t really that simple.
While the quantity of sleep is important, the quality of your sleep is pertinent as well. Sleep can be broken down into non-REM and REM sleep, with non-REM being broken out into N1, N2, and N3. As we fall into the cycle between N3 and REM sleep, each cycle gets slightly longer throughout the night.
Although seven to eight hours of sleep is a decent standard to abide by, it’s crucial to set yourself up to get as much uninterrupted sleep as possible. Using a fan for white noise, sleeping in a cooler temperature room, or even using a sleep supplement like Shut Eye can all set you up for success.
Before we jump into the inner-workings of the immune system we first need to understand what the immune system is.
The immune system is our body’s natural defense system standing by to combat infections and illnesses. Our immune systems are made up of two parts, the innate immune system, and the adaptive immune system each of which serves specific purposes in protecting us from the many things in the world that can and will put our health at risk.
– Innate Immune System: This branch works to combat common pathogens such as bacterias, viruses, etc.
– Adaptive Immune System:This branch adapts and learns how to combat specific threats that the body has already come into contact with. Without one of these branches working properly, our bodies would be at extreme risk of health complications. The innate and adaptive branches work to fight off thousands of threats that we might not even know we’ve come in contact with on a daily basis. If you don’t understand how important it is to keep your immune system working at it’s absolute best now, we’re not sure what will convince you.
It’s relatively common knowledge at this point that getting the right amount of quality sleep is good for your health, but why is that?
When we deprive ourselves of sleep our body creates fewer cytokines. Cytokines are proteins secreted by specific cells of the immune system that regulate immunity, inflammation, and hematopoiesis. A deficient amount of cytokines results in us being more susceptible to infections. All in all, without enough sleep, our bodies can’t create the proper defense mechanisms to protect themselves.
Now that we know more about sleep, the immune system, and sleep deprivation’s impact on the immune system, let’s get into how you can start sleeping better.
We briefly touched on a few ideas for how you can start sleeping better earlier, but below we break down a few more tactics that you can start implementing today to get on track to better fend off infection and illness.
1. Limit The Amount Of Light In Your Bedroom
Falling asleep is only one piece of the puzzle though. Staying asleep is a factor often overlooked by the sleeping community… also known as everyone. Ensuring that your room has limited light will allow your brain to produce the hormones necessary to fall and stay asleep.
2. Limit Disruptive Noise
White noise can be highly beneficial for sleep and the reason for that is it can help drown out disruptive noise that might signal to our body to wake up out of defense. If you’ve ever been startled by an unexpected noise or a friend hiding behind a door, you’ve experienced the reaction we have to noises. This same experience can occur while we’re sleeping and while it’s important to know what is going on around you, limiting disruptive noise in your bedroom will help you fall asleep and stay asleep longer. Start by putting your phone on silent, putting your TV on a sleep timer if you use it as white noise, and soundproofing windows if you’re near noisy roads.
3. Take A Sleep Supplement
We mentioned sleep aids earlier and while we might be a little biased, our flagship product, Shut Eye, is packed full of ingredients that help with sleep.
Melatonin, which is predominantly produced by the pineal gland, is responsible for signaling to your brain that it is time to prepare for sleep. We pair melatonin with a carefully formulated blend of other sleep-enhancing ingredients to help you start sleeping better on day one. We even believe in our products so much that we offer a no questions asked money-back guarantee.
Melatonin, which is predominantly produced by the pineal gland, is responsible for signaling to your brain that it is time to prepare for sleep. We pair melatonin with a carefully formulated blend of other sleep-enhancing ingredients to help you start sleeping better on day one. We even believe in our products so much that we offer a no questions asked money-back guarantee.
The immune system is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle that we call the human body. Without proper nutrition, sleep, and regular exercise we run the risk of allowing harmful viruses and bacteria to penetrate our defenses and run the risk of becoming dangerously ill. While we understand that sometimes sleeping well and eating your absolute best might not seem possible, with the right planning and attention to detail we can all do just 1% better to guard against the dangers we face every day.
