Dr Itopa Garuba, a behavioural Scientist at the General Hospital Minna, has called on Nigerians to adopt sleep hygiene for the body’s general well being.
He said in an interview in Minna, on Saturday that a good sleep is beneficial to the general well being of the body and should not be compromised.
Garuba said that lack of quality sleep is responsible for many health conditions ravaging the human body.
He said that routine sleep hygiene is important for the body system to enable it function at its best, urging individuals to maintain sleeping time and should not alter it.
“It is sacrosanct to have a sleeping time and we should try to respect it; we should refrain from stimulant such as tea, coffee, smoking as it affects the nervous system and deprive sleep.
“We should avoid movies that will excite us, we should avoid watching Television while we are on the bed, and avoid clogging our bed room” he said.
Garuba reiterated the need for everybody to appreciate that the body needs to resuscitate and renew itself adding that the lost energy needs to be restored while we sleep.
“Frequent lack of good sleep can affect the immune system and the consequence of that is frequent catching of cold and flu.” he said.
He said that men and women who do not have good sleep, have poor sex life which is also detrimental to their psychological well being.
According to him good sleep increases fertility in couples while frequent sleep disorder affects the reproductive hormone which causes infertility.
Garuba further attributed the cause of forgetfulness to inadequate sleep saying that while we sleep our brain works and if we get poor sleep it affects retention and cognition.
He noted that poor sleep is associated to poor mental health, anxiety, depression, mood disorders and other related problems.
According to him frequent loss of sleep can cause the brain cell to die as a result of lack of oxygen which can also cause stroke.
Garuba said that having enough exercise and eating healthily is not the only thing a good heart needs but a quality sleep devoid of distractions.
”Newborns needs 14 to 17 hours sleep; infants, 12 to 15 hours sleep; toddlers, 11 to 14 hours sleep; pre-school age, 10 to 13 hours sleep and school age, 9 to 11 hours sleep.
“Teenagers, 8 to 10 hours sleep; young adults, 7 to 9 hours sleep; adults, 7 to 9 hours sleep and older adults, 7 to 8 hours of recommended sleep for the body to function optimally” he said.
He however said that it was wrong for an individual to abuse drugs that aids sleep, as it would cause insomnia on the long run. (NAN)
