An ability to be even-tempered? Absence of bad habits? Regular physical exercise and sports? A balanced diet? Favorable heredity? In your opinion, what is most important for good health? A large-scale study conducted by a group of scientists from the UK concludes that the most important thing is healthy sleep.
The scientists note: you need to pay attention to all the possible factors that can affect health. It is important to take into account everything: genetics, physical activity and mental well-being. However, sleep is the most important health factor – by the way, it is only slightly ahead of a reasonably balanced diet.
Sleep influences metabolism in the body. Absence of optimal sleep will eventually lead to obesity even if you have an absolutely correct diet. A reasonable amount of exercise will undermine the health of your heart. A generally correct way of life and lack of genetic predisposition will not be able to prevent diabetes from developing. 80% of the people in the world artificially create their sleep problems, and 40% have medical problems with sleep. As a result, approximately 30% of people in the world do not get enough sleep chronically or constantly. That is how Bruce Locke, professor of sleep lab from the School of Medicine at the University of Brighton, commented on the results of this study.
The scientists have created a theoretical model of how humanity would look if each of us had sufficient sleep. According to this model, mortality from cardiovascular disease would be reduced by about 50%, and the incidence of diabetes would be 30% lower. As a result, every year it could save the lives of 100-150 million people worldwide.
Incidentally, it is at night that the body produces 70% of the daily amount of melatonin – a hormone that protects us from stress and premature aging, colds and even cancer. The hormone production begins to grow at dusk, then it reaches its maximum from midnight to 4.00 a.m. and is reduced at dawn. Therefore, going to bed in the morning, we deprive ourselves of the necessary quantity of one of the most powerful natural immune modulators and antioxidants, a free radical scavenger, which removes these unstable molecules that destroy the DNA, cells and tissues and contribute to cancer and heart diseases.
