Living is hard work. The thousands, even millions, of individual metabolic and assembly line style processes that our minds and bodies have to constantly go through, on both the micro and macroscopic levels, are simply exhausting.

Therefore, we need rest as much as we need H20 and glucose in order to function in even the most basic of ways. And when it comes to resting, merely sitting still on a fairly regular basis is not going to cut it in terms of satisfactorily relaxing our organs and their processes.

Rest that de-stresses the mind and body in terms of both muscular activity and thoughts alike, is what is truly necessary for us to recharge, rejuvenate, and be able to continue to work.

A lot of ventures in scientific research have been devoted to not only defining the term “rest” in relation to what the term means for the human mind and the human body, but that research has also had to explore figuring out what the changing standards of resting are, as people evolve, and times and environments change. Continue reading →

The process of “shutting off” at frequent and regular intervals, for all living things, is as crucial an element to our survival as are nutrition and hydration.

Sleep deprivation, in any of the ways in which it can manifest, can be detrimental in ways that are both acute, with a sudden onset primarily affecting our short-term health, or chronic, occurring over a longer stretch of time and affecting our overall long-term safety.

Sleep deprivation can range from the minor exhaustion one experiences after pulling an “all-nighter” for a school project, which can be cured with a simple nap, to detrimental insomnia related diseases for which there is no known cure.

In between these two extremes are multitudes of ways in which not getting enough sleep can hurt us. Although our sleep requirements are specific to people individually, there are general range requirements for different stages of life. Continue reading →