As fall approaches, your health becomes more focused in your life. Talk of flu and cold prevention can be found everywhere. What can you do to fight the sickness around you? Get the sleep you need to stay healthy.

Get Plenty of Sleep

For years, it has been said that you need you around 8 hours of sleep each night. The reality is that this is not always possible. Life doesn’t always let us do everything we need to do. But sleep is very important. It can actually be one of the most powerful weapons you have to fighting the bugs that keep you down.

How much sleep do you really need? A good baseline is 8 hours, but this does not mean that every person is geared to need that amount of time. Some people can go just fine on 5 or 6 hours without compromising their immune system. Others might need a little more. You need to find the right balance for you.

Too Little Sleep Can Hurt You

When you don’t get enough sleep, your body becomes weakened. Sleep is important to heal your body and keep it healthy enough to fight off diseases. When you close your eyes and enter dreamland, your body breathes a sigh of relief and begins working harder than ever. Cells repair during this time. Energy is built up, also. This is the time when your body prepares itself to make it through another day and all the demands thrown at it.

You can’t concentrate when you don’t get enough sleep. Your body is trying to force you to sleep because it knows that it is getting weaker. You can’t find the energy to exercise or even get from point A to point B. It is important that your body has the chance to get you prepared for the tasks at hand.

As you sleep, your immune system also is build up. Throughout the day, you are hit with germs and viruses left and right. Your immune system never fully stops working. Your computer keyboard has your immune system jumping. Washing dirty clothes call up the immune system reinforcement crews. Going out into public means your immune system has to work overtime. It is when you sleep that it gets a slight rest and can rearm itself. Think about it. When soldiers go into battle, they have to be fully alert and have all the equipment they need. If they don’t, death awaits them. When your immune system has to go into battle against all the germs you encounter, it has to be fully alert and all the equipment it needs to win. If it doesn’t, you are faced with sicknesses that could be fatal if not taken care of properly.

Too Much Sleep Can Hurt You

On the other hand, if you have too much sleep, you could be hurting yourself. That sounds wrong as too little sleep can do the same thing. Always keep in mind that too much of a good thing is usually harmful. You need the right amount for you and not any more than that.

Too much sleep causes you to grow weak. Your body is always in shut down mode. Though the immune system is working, it is still in sleep mode. This means that it is not putting on its battle armor and is not ready to fight. It wants to rest. The soldier needs his rest, but not when the bullets are flying. He needs it at the appropriate time.
More Sleep Needed When Sick

Sleep is important. When you’re sick, you need to sleep more. Why? The body is fighting hard, and it needs to concentrate on where the battle is being fought the hardest. If you get up and try to be active, you are forcing those soldiers to move from the battlefront to man other areas. You won’t get any better by doing that.

If you do get sick this fall, take it easy and sleep. It’s better to miss out on life for a couple of days than to give less than quality work for a couple of weeks.

Don’t ignore getting sleep anytime especially during the cold and flu season. Keep your immune system healthy and ready to fight at all times. This means having a healthy diet, too. But even the best diet and exercise can’t help if you don’t get the sleep you need. Take a nap if you need to. Just don’t like the sicknesses win. Fight back with a few hours of needed sleep.