Sleep - A necessity

Sleep is a natural state of bodily rest observed throughout the animal kingdom. Sleep is a temporary state of unconsciousness, which restores the neurotransmitters that are utilized in the course of the day. they are chemical messengers used in nervous system for its routine function. In addition, the non stop organs such as heart and lungs relax during deep sleep and work with ease, That is why the heartbeat, respiratory rate and BP come down during deep sleep. Though it depends on the physical and mental activity, normally 6-8 hours of sleep is sufficient for an adult to replace neuro transmitters.
There are two types of sleep. Deep sleep or dreamless sleep and superficial sleep or dreadful sleep. In the course of the night, normally we start with deep sleep for about 90 minutes and this is followed by 20 minutes of superficial sleep and once again there is a repetition of this cycle as long as we sleep. Deep sleep relaxes out body, reduces our basal metabolic rate and refreshes us. The deeper the sleep a person has in the night, the more refreshed he will be on waking up. Superficial sleep is associated with dreams, rapid eye movement, increase in heart rate, irregular breathing and is not very refreshing.
It also leads to night mares, teeth grinding and hallucination. Techniques such as meditaion and exercises help eliminaaate superfcial sleep and induce deep sleep.
Do not sleep if you are really not sleepy, sa superficial sleep has no positive effect on your body. But the most importnat thing is we must feel fresh after getting up from sleep. Otherwise, the real benefit of sleep is lost.