Sleep and Diet: Eating to Sleep Well: The Importance of Sleep

The Importance of Sleep

The quality of sleep has an enormous impact on daily life, since poor or disordered sleep can affect your work, concentration, and ability to interact with others. During sleep, both physical and mental restoration take place, allowing you to feel fresh and alert in the morning.

Sleep needs vary from one person to another; the optimal average is 7 to 9 hours. You can judge whether or not you're getting the right amount by how you feel the next day -- too much or too little sleep leaves a person feeling tired and irritable. Because growth hormones are released during sleep, babies, children, and adolescents require more sleep than adults do.

Sleep researchers discount the common myth that older people require less sleep; instead, the amount of sleep that an adult needs remains fairly constant. With advancing age, however, the nature of sleep changes and the incidence of sleep disorders rises. The degree of time spent in the deeper stages of sleep often lessens with age, and an older person is likely to awaken more frequently during the night.