HOW IMPORTANT SLEEP IS TO YOUR WELLBEING

We have not been posting much for the past 2 weeks as we are exhausted. We have been working like dogs. Just how much or how many hours should one work a day? The recommended number of hours is 8, that is why we are doing that. It is of course not always the case because we have late nights. In the past 2 weeks we have tried to work that full 8 hours and not go beyond it. Boy! Talk about being fully focused on things for that amount of time. It is most exhausting.

We were not trying to be martyrs. We were contracted for 2 weeks and fair enough, too much work was cramped into that 8 hours a day. We were knocked out at 11pm when we usually only start to doze off at 2am. There is something about overloading the brains, it takes up a lot of energy. And the only remedy is sleep.

This is from Wiki:

Sleep is a heightened anabolic state, accentuating the growth and rejuvenation of the immune, nervous, skeletal and muscular systems. It is observed in all mammals, all birds, and many reptiles, amphibians, and fish.

Wound healing has been shown to be affected by sleep. A study conducted by Gumustekin et al.^[31] in 2004 shows sleep deprivation hindering the healing of burns on rats. It has been shown that sleep deprivation affects the immune system. In a study by Zager et al. in 2007,^[32] rats were deprived of sleep for 24 hours. When compared with a control group, the sleep-deprived rats' blood tests indicated a 20% decrease in white blood cell count, a significant change in the immune system. It is now possible to state that "sleep loss impairs immune function and immune challenge alters sleep," and it has been suggested that mammalian species which invest in longer sleep times are investing in the immune system, as species with the longer sleep times have higher white blood cell counts.^[33]