Professor Siraj Wali, a consultant in chest diseases and sleep medicine, confirmed to Okaz that dedicating an international awareness day to sleep is an indication of its importance to human health, as the individual cannot perform any tasks if his body does not get rest and sleep.
He said: During the period of sleep, vital processes take place inside the body that regulate the daily rhythm of the individual, the mechanism of hormone secretion and other processes that enhance human work and productivity.
He added: In conjunction with the World Sleep Day, which the world celebrates, we warn that sleep deprivation affects the quality of job performance, by affecting mental functions, such as: memory, mental ability, motor skills, and mood swings, while healthy sleep regulates various bodily functions. , such as temperature, time of awakening, sleepiness, hunger, as well as the secretion of most hormones over a 24-hour period. Sleep is considered the food that the brain and body need, while staying up late and poor sleep push the body to react – through its hormones – in an unstable and unexpected way.
He added that healthy sleep is what ensures that the hormone “melatonin” is secreted correctly at night, as the hormone is naturally present in the body, and it is produced by the pineal gland in the brain, and plays an important role in regulating the sleep cycle in humans, and its highest levels of secretion are in the late hours of the night (3). to 4 am), i.e. about 3 hours after entering sleep, then it begins to gradually decrease in preparation for waking up.
Professor Siraj Wali stressed the need to take care of early sleep at night and to avoid staying up late, and the need to resist the temptations of social activities at late times of the night, and to change the culture of linking social entertainment with smoking, which is a strong stimulant to the brain, excessive sleep and caffeine, and avoiding arousing the mind at least two hours before bedtime. Limiting attachment to social media, reducing noise and intensity of lights, eating foods that stimulate relaxation and sleep, not overeating in the evening, and exposure to sunlight during the morning hours to urge the body to alert and feel active, and avoiding long naps during the day so as not to delay sleep night.
He concluded his speech by saying: “Practicing relaxation exercises before bed helps in obtaining a calm sleep. At the beginning of sleep, a person gradually moves from a state of complete alertness to a state of sleep, and this transitional period between wakefulness and sleep is called the period of drowsiness, the duration of which varies from person to person and from night. to another, and it is often interspersed with many scattered thoughts and thoughts, while the movement of the body resides and the muscles begin to relax, and this period of drowsiness is followed by the actual state of sleep.”