Sleep is imperative for mental and physical health. It is one of nature's greatest restoratives. Deprived of sleep, we can become mentally disordered till its restorative virtues are Once more enjoyed.
What is sleep? It is a recurrent healthy state where our body and mind are in a state of inertia and unresponsiveness.
Sleep helps us to restore our energy, refresh our brain and make the most of our physical resources.
There is no exact formula for just how many hours of sleep you personally need in a day.
At an average, people sleep for about eight hours a day, but some people can awake refreshed even after four to six hours.
Others need as much as ten hours. Most infants and babies sleep at an average of twelve to fourteen hours each day.
To ensure a relaxing and refreshing sleep, make sure that your bed is comfortable. A mattress that is either too soft or too hard is bad for your spine. Make sure that yours is of just medium softness.
Propping your head, on a pile of pillows will only give you a double chin and a snore. Remember to use only one single flattish pillow.
If you have trouble getting sleep, avoid the temptation of swallowing a sleeping pill. These pills do not induce a relaxed and natural sleep. After an unnatural and forced sleep, you get up feeling most un-fresh and headachy. More than just that, it does terrible things to your looks.
However, if you do not get the adequate amount of sleep, your skin will show it. It becomes dry, blotchy and lifeless.
To induce sleep, have a warm bath before retiring to bed. Follow it up with a warm drink of milk. Calcium is a natural tranquillizer. If you suffer from sleeplessness, swallow three to four tablets of calcium lactate with milk.
However, keep in mind that sometimes the desire to sleep is absent simply because your body does not require sleep at that moment. Use this time, when your family is fast asleep, for yourself. Read, listen to soft music or simply meditate.
Gradually, as you relax, you will start feeling sleepy.
The importance of a medium soft mattress can never be stressed enough. Other than giving you a backache and other back trouble, a mattress that is too soft can be very uncomfortable as one tends to sleep on it in a slumped position.
If possible, raise the lower part of the mattress (the foot end) so that you sleep with your feet elevated to about six inches or a foot above head level.
This position is ideal because the blood flows back towards the heart and away from the feet.
While you sleep, your body burns calories at the rate of half a calorie per pound of body weight per hour.
