Sleep

My mother belongs to a speakers forum. Once a month, the members meet for a social morning, and one of them will give a talk on something they have experienced or researched. My mother is giving the talk this month, and the topic she has chosen is "Fatal familial insomnia". This is a very rare disease, symptomised by total and complete lack of sleep. There is currently no treatment available - gene therapy may be useful, once the gene in question has been isolated. But until then, it is, literally, a killer. Sufferers die from total exhaustion. So it seems that sleep is as essential to our health and well-being as food and water.

Oddly enough, I have been thinking about sleep for a while now, even before I knew about my mother's up-coming talk. I love my sleep.

From various reasearch done since the mid 1950s, an average adult sleep-need has been calculated.
Apparently, adults (including the elderly) require 7 to 8 hours sleep a night, and if we don't get it we run into 'sleep-deficit' which is detrimental to health.

Lack of sleep can be a risk factor for weight gain, high blood pressure and type-2 diabetes - all conditions that we normally associate with food! Too little sleep definitely leads to irritability, lethargy, memory lapses, impaired cognitive function and a weakened immune system.

So for optimal health, eat wisely and sleep well.

By the way, if you are pregnant you need more than 8 hours sleep a night - perhaps to help you through those first few months of night feeding.