Sleeping 6 Hours or Less Affects Your Brain – GQ Magazine

To sleep too little really bad for your health? Do you sleep 6 hours or less and think that is enough? You may actually feel good for a while, but science indicates that this practice has negative consequences, primarily for your brain. According to what Dr Rebecca Robbins of Harvard Medical School told the Telegraph, only one hour of difference in your schedule. sleep can have serious consequences and throw your internal clock out of balance (also called the circadian rhythm, which tells your body when to sleep and when to wake up). “When we change our sleep schedules by an hour or more from day to day, we send signals to the brain that we are trying to transition to a new time zone, which makes it difficult to sleep. the next night, ”she said.

The expert, who is also an associate researcher in the division of circadian disorders and sleep at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, says toxins are also released by the brain during the sleep cycle and can cause serious problems (plus you will likely feel tired, lacking in energy and unable to concentrate the next day).

Here’s what happens to your brain if you get 6 hours of sleep or less

According to experts, the brain produces toxins throughout the day and if you don’t get enough or enough sleep they can build up and lead to neurocognitive deterioration, which increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and Madness. On top of that, according to Robbins, studies have also shown that people who don’t sleep the proper number of hours have a greater risk of developing diseases like flu. Among the negative consequences, there are several points to keep in mind.

• It slows down your thinking process, affects your focus, alertness, judgment, and makes decision making more difficult.
• It affects your memory. Science says that the nerve connections that create our memories are strengthened while we sleep and this is what keeps the things you learned during the day in memory.
• This makes learning more difficult because it reduces your ability to concentrate and your memory.
• You have a slower reaction time. It can be very dangerous because it means that you will not be able to react in time to a problem or an accident because it takes more time for you to analyze a situation and find a solution. You even have a higher risk of having a car accident.

What does Robbins recommend for getting enough sleep? The expert says that it is very important to have a consistent sleep schedule because the lack of regularity prevents your body and brain from properly relaxing and “shutting down” so you can sleep. In addition, you should not look at your phone before falling asleep and it is good to do a meditation before going to bed to be in the right frame of mind. Also, if you wake up in the middle of the night, you should definitely resist the temptation to look at your telephone. It is best to get out of bed and sit on the floor or in a chair with your legs crossed.

Also, whenever you can, you should add a nap, which is a good part of a healthy sleep routine, although you should stick to the rule of thumb. 20 minutes (if you got too little sleep for some reason, or if it’s too bad, you can take a 90 minute nap to make up for it).

Via GQ Mexico y Latin America.