You have probably heard many times that a healthy lifestyle is the key to a good life. This includes a healthy diet, regular hydration, exercise, and sleep. An adult needs at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep. For people with stressful jobs, sleep is even more important because the brain removes toxins during sleep.
Sleep is considered food for the brain because, while we sleep, our brain regenerates. The glymphatic system, which protects the brain, is ten times more active during sleep than when we are awake. During sleep, brain cells shrink, allowing cerebrospinal fluid to wash the brain and rid it of waste. Therefore, the regenerative role of sleep is primarily seen as bringing the brain into a functional state that facilitates the removal of waste products from neural activity during wakefulness (Xia et al. 2014). Amyloid-beta, whose high levels cause Alzheimer’s disease, is also removed from our brain during sleep (Walker 2020).
The hypothalamus plays a key role in sleep, as certain nuclei in the diencephalon are activated through it during different sleep stages. Different neurotransmitters are responsible for the various stages of sleep. Walker (ibid.) states that most traffic accidents are caused by a lack of sleep and that human behavior during drowsiness resembles that of someone intoxicated. Imagine giving a lecture under the influence of alcohol. Your lecture would be disjointed, unstructured, and you wouldn’t know what you wanted to say or what you had already said. Short-term memory loss is one of the signs of fatigue. If you want to perform your job professionally, you need to be well-rested. Only then will you and your students be happy.
There are many books on healthy eating and exercise. Here, we only wish to highlight that our brain needs enough energy and various vitamins and minerals to function properly. Therefore, it is important to provide the brain with the essential elements (food) it needs to easily carry out its tasks. However, since the human “second brain” is located in the gut, it is important to eat food that is easy to digest. If, during your workday (or otherwise), you eat very heavy meals (with too much fat, too much protein, in oversized portions), the food will not give you extra energy, but rather take it away due to difficult digestion. Additionally, it is not advisable to eat when you are under significant stress. It has been proven that digestion slows down when you are stressed, causing numerous discomforts.
When is it better to skip a meal, and when is it necessary to calm down, take a deep breath, and then eat calmly and thoughtfully?
A healthy lifestyle also includes being able to stop, take a deep breath, and make time for yourself. Everyone needs time alone, because only then can we truly feel ourselves. A sufficient amount of free time and hobbies positively affect our well-being and help reduce stress. Unfortunately, in our fast-paced lives, there is too little free time. In the following, we will look at why this is the case and try to find ways to manage our time so that we can fit enough time for ourselves into our day and week. You may not always succeed, but small steps can lead to great achievements.