The process for breathing at night is a combination of nasal and oral breathing. At Dental Wellness one of the first assessments we do is a checklist to determine the quality of the sleep you are getting now. The quality of your sleep is directly related to your mouth. So what does your mouth have to do with your sleep? Click here to view their recommended sleep requirement for your age. The Australian Sleep Health Foundation does report that individuals vary in their sleep needs but most adults require between 7 and 9 hours a night to feel properly refreshed and function at their best the next day. For humans sleep is a vital indicator of overall health and well-being. Humans, like all animals, need sleep, along with food, water and oxygen, to survive. How much sleep should you actually be getting? In essence, a single night of wakefulness can alter your biological clock. Molecular analyses of the collected tissue samples showed that the regulation and activity of clock genes was altered after one night of sleep loss. Their research was based on the taking of small tissue samples (from the superficial fat on the stomach and from the muscle on the thigh – two kinds of tissues that are important for regulating metabolism and controlling blood sugar levels) and blood samples. Keeping all other things equal, their findings were extremely interesting.
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In one session, the men slept as usual (over 8 hours) whilst during the other session, they were kept awake. Their focus group was 15 healthy normal weight men who visited their lab on 2 separate occasions for almost 2 night long stays. I have just read a recent study by Jonathan Cedernaes and his colleagues from Uppsala University in Sweden that has taken this one step further. In fact, previous studies have reported that sleep loss is linked to an invreated risk of obesity and type-2 diabetes.
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We have all heard reports that metabolism is negatively affected by sleep loss and the important role sleep plays in achieving a healthy lifestyle. Did you know that the genes that control the biological clocks in cells throughout the body are altered after losing just a single night of sleep?