Stress Less: You snooze, you lose
Stress, that is. A timely story about sleep posted this morning discusses why sleep is so important in so many ways to our health. Of course, one of those ways is managing stress hormones. And, of course, I am struggling through the morning after an entire night of insomnia.
According to the article, our bodies use sleep to release certain hormones, including those essential for growth and development. If we wake in the middle of the night, those functions are disrupted. One example is cortisol. For people with normal sleep patterns, this stress hormone peaks around 4 a.m. We're blissfully unaware because we snooze through it. Then, a doctor is quoted as saying: "If you're awake longer than you should be for a few days, that puts your body under stress, which leads to higher levels of cortisol."
Let's hope I have some luck tonight.
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