Sleep allows certain immune cells to work harder against any pathogens that may be in your body. Therefore, not sleeping enough can affect recovery from illness or prevent you from getting better at all
The Importance of Sleep for Adults
By Sumayya Khan
Toronto, Canada
According to the Handbook of Clinical Neurology, we spend one third of our lives sleeping. 1 For those of us who live busy lives, this fact may come as a shock and surprise as it seems like a waste of time! Imagine what we could achieve if we productively used even half of the time we slept?! Regardless of how we feel about wasted time, sleep is vital to our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. If we do not get enough for a prolonged period of time, our overall health declines and brings us closer to a number of diseases that could easily be avoided.
Let us look at the many benefits of sleep to our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves.
Physical Health Benefits
Sleep supports our brain function, metabolism and our circulatory, respiratory, and immune systems. When we begin to sleep, our blood pressure and heart rate go down – decreasing our heart’s workload compared to when we are awake. If we wake up often during the night or do not sleep enough, we are at a higher risk of coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and stroke. Sleep allows certain immune cells to work harder against any pathogens that may be in your body. Therefore, not sleeping enough can affect recovery from illness or prevent you from getting better at all.
There are a number of physical properties associated with sleep. These include:
Cortisol, Memory, and the Circadian Rhythm
Our bodies have a natural running clock called the circadian rhythm. The body releases cortisol – a hormone that promotes alertness – to help wake you up in the morning. When it is released depends on when you regularly go to sleep and wake up. Making sure to have a regular sleep schedule is important so as not to put your body through undue stress. For example, cortisol levels will remain high even when going to bed because your body may not be used to sleeping at a later time.
Large amounts of cortisol in our blood can be related to rapid development of a variety of diseases along with the degradation of our hippocampus – the memory storage part of our brain. Focusing on tasks such as driving, studying, and thinking clearly can become very difficult when sleep deprived. Moreover, long-term memories are mostly consolidated while sleeping which makes it essential to have high-quality sleep for activities that require you to use your mind and memory, such as studying. 2
Metabolism
The circadian rhythm also affects the liver in how we digest our fats at appropriate times. The body releases leptin and ghrelin hormones to control when we feel hungry, and insulin in order to break down sugar after eating. If we eat at unusual times, the body will be unsure of when we actually feel hungry or when it needs to break down food, making our hormone levels, especially the production of insulin, erratic. When we lose the ability to respond to insulin, we risk developing diabetes. Moreover, the erratic levels of ghrelin and leptin caused by sleep deprivation will lead to more consumption of fatty, sweet, and salty foods. Irregular eating, especially with an irregular sleep schedule, can lead to being overweight or obese, which in turn leads to other diseases.
Mental and Emotional Health Benefits
Sleep deprivation can cause one to develop depression, anxiety, increased anger and irritability, and mood swings. 3 It is interesting to know just how important sleep is for even the worst mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress from war.
Here are some ways sleep can help with our mental and emotional health.
Sleep can help with recovery from trauma
Dealing with highly stressful situations such as war, assault, or even bullying can greatly alter our memory and body alert systems. For example, post-traumatic stress can cause us to go into a state of instant fear or anger after experiencing a triggering situation related to the highly stressful event. Moreover, our memory consolidation has been tampered by the constant release of stress hormones such as adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol. Sleep helps with memory consolidation and lowering our stress hormones. You are then more likely to wake up with positive emotions and are more willing to take on challenging tasks. Regularly sleeping well is a great healing process for trauma victims.
Sleep can boost your creativity.
As our brain processes and consolidates our memory during sleep, it also subconsciously re-evaluates our problems from the day. This usually happens when you experience REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement. During this stage of deep sleep, your eyes move rapidly under your eyelids, your brain is active again, and your breathing increases. You generally have vivid dreams at this point, and that is where you begin to evaluate and solve your problems from the real world. The brain also decides which memories to encode as long-term memory, and it also strengthens your neural connections. According to a Harvard Medical School research study in 1993, if you really want to solve a problem, think about it right before you fall asleep, and your brain will get right into it during your sleep. You may find a solution to it if you keep doing this for a week. 4
Spiritual Benefits
It is mentioned several times in the Qur’an that Allah made the day for work and the night for rest:
“It is out of His mercy that He has made for you the day and night so that you may rest ˹in the latter˺ and seek His bounty ˹in the former˺, and perhaps you will be grateful.”
(Surah Al-Qasas, 28:73)
It is a great mercy from Allah that He provides us a mechanism to rest on a daily basis. If we were to seek His Bounty by trying to commit good deeds or avoid bad deeds all day without rest, it would greatly fatigue us. Sleep can be a form of worship if we remember Allah before going to sleep and wake up remembering Him as well. If we follow the sunnah of doing wudu’ (ablution) before sleeping, then we can achieve this.
Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, reports that Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
“Purify your bodies, Allah will purify you, for verily any person who sleeps in a condition of purity will indeed have an angel spending the night by his side and whenever he turns over at any moment during the night the angel says, ‘O Allah forgive your servant for verily he has spent the night in the state of purity.’”
(Al-Mu’jmaul-Awsat of Tabarani)
Moreover, if we perform Isha (night) prayer in congregation and then follow it with the morning Fajr prayer in congregation after sleeping through the night, then it will be as if one had prayed the entire night, as noted in this hadith. Uthman ibn Affan, may Allah be pleased with him, states that Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
“Whoever performs his ‘Isha Salah in congregation, it is as though he has performed salah for half the night and whoever performs the ‘Isha and Fajr in congregation, it is as though he has performed salah for the entire night.”
(Sahih Muslim and Sunan Abi Dawud)
How beautiful it is that the simple act of sleeping can also be rewarded by Allah if we do it by remembering Him?
How to Improve Your Sleep
There are several ways we can work on improving our sleep.
1. Have a regular sleep and wake time to set your circadian rhythm straight.
This way, even if you do not see a clock, your body will naturally feel sleepy when it is time. Furthermore, if you did not sleep well one night, still wake up at your usual time and add a nap later in the day so as not to disrupt your rhythm.
2. Avoid looking at a screen one hour before bedtime.
The blue light emitted from laptops, phones, and TVs can cause your brain to think it is daytime and disrupt your melatonin production. Melatonin is the hormone that induces sleep in us. Therefore, it is important to let that hormone play its role when it’s time by avoiding screens before bedtime.
3. Keep the bedroom dark and cool.
Again, any exposure to light will disrupt your melatonin production. Moreover, while falling asleep, our bodies naturally drop in temperature. Therefore, a warm environment will not let us fall asleep easily.
4. Avoid heavy meals right before bedtime.
It is best to let our stomachs digest food at least 3 hours before bedtime because it is hard to sleep when our stomachs are busy digesting.
5. Exercise regularly.
Exercising 20-30 minutes a day, even as simple as brisk walking, can help us sleep better. It increases the time spent in deep sleep which is the most restorative phase of sleep. Moreover, the energy you expend makes you feel more tired and ready to sleep by the end of the day. Lastly, exercise also decreases our stress hormones which helps us to be less alert when it’s time for bed.
There are many more benefits to sleeping for everyone in different stages of their lives. Just as newborns and teenagers need sleep to grow, adults need sleep to help us solve problems, continue to work, and study effectively, and to raise the next generation. If one is deprived of sleep, it can cause a chain reaction of problems in all aspects of our lives. Therefore, focus on sleeping better in order to be productive during the day.
Happy sleeping!
Endnotes
- We spend about one-third of our life either sleeping or attempting to do so | researchgate.net
- How Sleep Works - How Much Sleep Is Enough? | NHLBI, NIH
- Three (even more) surprising mental health benefits of sleep | suidicide.org.au
- How Sleep Improves and Impairs Creative Thinking | each night
(Sumayya Khan is a homeschooling mother of two and a teacher. She has worked with several Islamic schools and organizations in the last 10 years. She is currently teaching Literature online with Dawanet and studying the Qur’an through Al-Huda Institute. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her family and friends, play sports, enjoy nature, and read books. She currently resides with her family in Toronto, Canada.)
