Sleep & Your Wellbeing

It is all too easy to overlook the tremendous importance of sleep while we balance out our busy schedules, demanding careers, and family life.  As you get lost in the shuffle, sleep can sometimes fall by the wayside — ironically it’s the one thing that can keep you from getting too lost in that shuffle.

We’ve all heard that sleep is an essential part of overall health and wellbeing.  When you get enough quality rest, you generally feel more energised and focused.  After a restful night’s sleep, your brain has had enough time to relax, recharge, and reset for the day ahead.  And while that’s always a plus, just how important is sleep in the grand scheme of our lives?

Dreams, metabolic function, healing, and many other systems of the human body rely heavily on sleep.  It’s integral to keeping us functioning at our best and ultimately living longer, better quality lives overall.

At DI Home, our philosophy is that setting the right sleep mood can play a crucial role in the quality of your health and life overall.

So, what is ‘sleep mood’ anyway?

When you wind down at the end of the day, certain conditions must align to yield the best possible rest for your body and mind.  When conditions are favourable, you can enter deeper modes of sleep that allow you to dream vividly, heal better, lower your risk of disease, and wake feeling refreshed and motivated.

For each person, this set of ideal conditions is different. And it’s all about finding the best combination for you.

Finding your sleep mood can affect your daily life. 

Improved Brain Function & Productivity

The brain is the control centre of the entire body.  It dictates how you function, communicate, and how efficiently you can perform tasks, as well as many other critical elements of human existence.

While you sleep, your brain is extremely active.  It is easy to think that as we slip away from the waking world and shift to a subdued level of consciousness, we experience less mental activity - this is hardly the case.

Sleep is such a complex phenomenon that it has phases of depth.  The general rule: the deeper the sleep, the more active your mental function during slumber.

Not all sleep is created equal.  You can get your 7-9 precious hours of recommended rest to varying degrees, and some are better than others.  Generally, the depth of your sleep enters the following phases:

• Deep sleep: also called slow wave sleep, or “SWS”
• REM sleep: sometimes referred to as “dreaming sleep,” in which rapid eye movement occurs during dreams

The depth of your sleep (and which phase you reach on a regular basis) is deeply affected by your Circadian rhythm.  What is this, you ask?  In short, it’s your sleep cycle.  

Biologically, long before we were born, our body was programmed to be awake during certain hours of the day and to rest at certain times of the night.  Before modern times, man’s sleep cycles originally followed the rhythm of the sun, because our distant ancestors would need daylight to hunt animals and gather their food.

It logically follows that one should rise as the sun rises and go to sleep when the sun sets. The demands of a modern lifestyle rarely permit this to be the case.  Our modern-day Circadian rhythms are far different than those of generations past, as they rely on so much more than the mere need to obtain food — they are dictated by work schedule, family life, stress level, and other everyday factors.

No matter the case, there is nothing more frustrating than brain fog.  Getting enough high quality, restful sleep will improve your brain’s ability to absorb, learn, and retain information. Cognitive function can only be at its peak when a mind is well rested and full of vitality.

Restful sleep is key to fully maximising the potential of your mind and cognitive function.  Brain cells regenerate during different phases of sleep, resulting in better overall ability to respond, analyse, problem solve, and remember information as we process it.

Each of these vital functions is an ingredient in the cocktail of productivity — and all of them, together, creates as sense of alert and focus.

Physical Wellbeing

It is essential to let your body heal properly after you engage in exercise.  Getting the required amount of sleep will significantly improve muscle recovery after you engage in sport.  It also provides you with higher levels of accuracy, agility, and better reaction times.

All of this will result in better physical wellbeing and general alertness.

Supporting the Immune System

“Get plenty of rest”, says every doctor when you’ve just been in the office for a sick visit.

The human body’s ability to fight infection and disease is directly linked to the quality and frequency of sleep.  Proper immune function simply cannot occur if the body is not well rested.  Sleep fortifies and strengthens our immune systems so that they can act as blockades for all sorts of antigens, from the common cold to COVID-19.

And while sleeping properly can’t literally prevent any disease, it will make your chances of fighting it off in the first place that much greater.

During a restful night’s sleep, your body repairs, revitalizes, and recovers itself, deep down to a cellular level.  Crucial to this process is the production of cytokines, which are proteins that fight against infection and inflammation.  Without them, a person has no defence against a wide range of illnesses.

This is especially important in colder seasons when airborne illness is on the spread.

Improving Mental Health

Poor quality sleep can affect you in ways you hardly realise.  In severe cases, when a person is sleep deprived, their mental health can be affected profoundly — and not in a good way.

Depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental health conditions have been directly attributed to disruptions in sleep.  Generally, a person who hasn’t slept well may act moody or irritable - especially before their first cup of coffee.

Emotional Effects

Sleep deprivation is directly related to emotional issues.  Just imagine if that “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee” feeling lasted all the time.

Without the right depth of sleep, you might discover antisocial behaviour knocking on your brain’s door.

Take this effect and compound it over years, and you’ve got a recipe for sleep-deprived disaster.  On the long term, the effects can be detrimental in large ways, leading to hormonal imbalance and potential mental health issues.

But this doesn’t sound like you, right?  You’re the smart, well-slept person who gets their daily dose of 7 to 9 hours.  Or at least you’d like to be.

Enter DI Home – We have a range of bedding to help you snoozing in now time. We’ll help you find your perfect sleep mood!!

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