The relationship between your immune system and sleep

Your immune system and sleep are intimately connected. Sleep loss impacts your immune response and, in turn, your immune system alters your sleep. If you are trying to avoid getting sick, consistent long and quality sleep will be one of your primary methods of preventing illness and ensuring optimal recovery.

Molecules called cytokines are signaling molecules in the immune system and the brain. Sleep deprivation decreases your body’s production of cytokines and inhibit your immune response to illness. Such as:

• Flu
• Colds
• Chronic illness

Specifically, lack of sleep prevents your immune system from building up its forces, meaning that your immune system will be overloaded by illness and will likely take longer to recover.

During illness, increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines correspond with increased fatigue, which is why you feel tired when you are sick. It’s your body’s way of telling you to sleep more and recover quicker from your illness.

How much sleep you should get

Getting enough sleep is extremely important for preventing illness. Of course, this involves knowing how much sleep you should be getting.

The amount of sleep you should be getting varies based on age. Below are minimum, maximum, and recommended amount of sleep, which will help prevent sickness. [Sleep Foundation]

• Age 0-4 months
  • Recommended 14-17 hours per day

• Age 4-12 months
  • Recommended 12-15 hours
• Age 1-3 years
  • Recommended 11-14 hours
• Age 3-5 years
  • Recommended 10-12 hours
• Age 6-13 years
  • Recommended 9-11 hours
• Age 13-18 years
  • Recommended 8-10 hours
• Age 18+
  • Recommended 7-9 hours

It important to ensure that you and your children are getting at least the recommended amount of sleep, but ideally much more.

Common causes of sleep deprivation

• Sleep disorders are a common cause of chronic sleep deprivation, including:
• Sleep apnea
• Insomnia
• Restless leg syndrome
• Circadian rhythm disorders
• Parasomnias

The primary symptom of a sleep disorder is sleep deprivation. Beyond this, each sleep disorder has its own set of unique symptoms. Sleep disorders are not only bad for your health for many reasons, but the fact that they cause sleep deprivation also makes you much more likely to get sick more often, and take longer to recover from sickness.

Sleep disorders are especially insidious if you are dealing with chronic or long term illness that already leaves you with a weak or compromised immune system, and it is imperative in such cases that you get lots of sleep to maintain energy and quality of life.

How to actually make up sleep

We all go through periods of time where we are not getting enough sleep – stress, children, age related sleep changes, and travel are all prime examples of this. It’s important in these circumstances to ensure that you are making up sleep, i.e. repaying your sleep debt.

There is a very problematic misconception about the sleep debt: mainly that it works like a monetary debt that you can simply pay off in lump sums. In real life, that generally looks like this:

• Only get 5 or 6 hours of sleep during the week, surviving off of coffee
• Sleeping in lots during the weekend

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like this. Sleep studies show that getting one or two long nights of sleep does not remove the effects of sleep deprivation.

You can’t just pay it all back like paying back a loan in one or two lump sums. You repay your sleep debt by establishing a healthy pattern of sleep over a period of time, such as a week or more, such as:

• Get extra sleep on the weekend
• Get enough or a little bit of extra sleep every day the following week

In other words, getting over sleep deprivation involves consistent, restful sleep. If you are getting less sleep at night, you can supplement your sleep by taking naps.

If you live in Alaska and are dealing with chronic sleep deprivation or chronic sickness that may be sleep related, please take with free online sleep test and get started on your road to recover.