There have been several cases of people who are physically active dying at the point of exercising. This makes people wonder if exercising is good for the body. There have been major incidents of prominent people die at the point of working out.
Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP-Indian subcontinent died after a massive cardiac arrest in Mumbai recently. This happened after his workout. One of the youngest CEOs, he was only 42 and was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner.
Also the Ex-vice president of Ghana, Mr. Amissah-Arthur, collapsed at the gym whiles keeping fit and was rushed to hospital but unfortunately died. Though the people of Ghana may associate the death of the Ex-vice president to be spiritual or a planned assassination, we can still learn a thing or two from the unfortunate incident.
If exercising was the only way to great health and fitness, sportsmen and sportswomen would have grown to be the world’s oldest people. But rather the opposite, some sportsmen and women tend to die at a very young age.
So the question now is, what the heck are we suppose to do then!?
As the saying goes “Too much of everything is bad”. Everything we do in life should be in moderate, not in excess and after a hard day’s work, the body needs to rest.
Sleeping is very vital to human health. Just one night of sleep loss, increases very toxic substances in the body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (CRP). They also cause cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Short sleep duration (<5 or 5-6 hours) increases risk for high BP by 350% to 500%* compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Young people (between 25-49 years of age) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Individuals who sleep less than 5 hours a night have a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Sleeping for less or equal to 5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for less or equal to 6 hours per night leads to 8% increase in heart disease.
So you may ask, “What is the ideal sleep?” In brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and non-REM. The REM helps in mental consolidation while the non-REM helps in physical repair and rebuilding. No wonder when one wakes up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, he/she is mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if somebody has slept for less than 5 hours, the body is in a complete physical mess (lack of non-REM sleep), the person is tired throughout the day and immunity is way down.
In conclusion, if you do everything right: eating proper food, exercising, and maintaining proper weight. But miss getting a proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. We are playing with fire if we are sleeping less than 7 hours even if we have low stress. Do not set your alarm clock under 7 hours.
Are you having enough sleep?