Sleep and Immune System

Season of illnesses among children, and we parents also suffer, whether seeing our children sick or even contracting the disease. If this is the case in your house, I want to ask you: how is YOUR sleep and that of YOUR child?

Sleep is the foundation of health, even before diet and exercise.

One of today's leading sleep researchers, Matthew Walker, brings relevant information about sleep and the immune system of adults and children, and I'm here to share it with you firsthand:

A study showed that sleeping less than 7 hours a night makes us 3x more likely to contract Rhinovirus (common flu). Sleeping less than 5 hours a night increases the chance of contracting pneumonia by 70%.

One study limited the sleep of healthy individuals to 4 hours for just one night and analyzed their amount of Natural Killer Cells the next day, seeing an incredible 70% decrease.

It is an alarming state of immune deficiency. The damage is already enormous in just one night. Imagine several weeks or years of sleep deprivation. Healthy sleep for adults is between 7 and 8 hours and for children, at least 10 hours of nighttime sleep.

When we get sick, we want to sleep and rest… And this has everything to do with the immune system! Mainly in deep sleep (first part of the night) stages 3 and 4, the body begins to regenerate and recharge the immune system. When we get a good night's sleep in quantity and quality, our immune system is more robust, more resilient and can better fight diseases.

Another recent study found that chronic sleep deprivation can affect our DNA. The study looked at healthy individuals within the limits of 6 hours of sleep per night for six nights and observed that an incredible and relevant amount of 711 genes had their normal activities distorted caused by lack of sleep. Half of these genes increased their activity, and others reduced it. Those that reduced were genes linked to immunity. The genes that increased cause chronic inflammation, stress, and some types of tumors.

Getting too little sleep is genetically modifying us. If children and teenagers don't get the amount of sleep they need or get quality sleep, we may already be violating these negative genetic changes.

This post shouldn't make you scared or anxious, but rather an essential plea that we can no longer ignore the sleep problems of children and teenagers and our sleep hygiene as parents.

Seek professional help for the whole family with an Integrative Sleep Educator.