Everything has an opposite side

Everything is both good for you and bad for you? That is until you understand the limits. A recent study shows that not getting enough sleep can be deadly for you but so too can getting too much. By doing either you’re messing with your circadian cycle which is there to keep you healthy and able to function. Not only does messing with your sleep pattern affect your body but it affects your mind too. Not getting enough sleep makes you irritable, short-tempered, mentally unable to think about anything or concentrate on doing simple tasks.  Getting too much makes you almost the same. The only difference being that you want to go right back to sleep because sleeping too much makes you more sleepy.

The body reacts a little differently. If you haven’t slept the night before you are going to be tired, feel physically unwell, have no energy and just want to binge eat because you feel constantly hungry throughout the day. You’ll want to eat high calorie foods such as cakes, biscuits and chocolates because nothing else you eat during the day gives you that ‘thing’ you need to feel better. It also messes with your bowel movements. You will, most likely be severely constipated throughout the day, or even several days, because your cycle is messed up. 

Having a nap in the middle of the day is often considered different and recommended to give an extra boost to your brain. But I’m not in favour of taking naps at all, nor have I ever done so. I find that napping in the day makes me less sleepy at night and that’s the one time I don’t want to be kept awake. In fact, I did fall asleep on the sofa last week for about 10 minutes before lunch. When I woke up I had no appetite and just wanted to have a coffee and go. Maybe that’s considered a good thing because then you eat less?

Sugar is also both good and bad for you as long as you understand in what way. Sugar intake is both vital and dangerous. Not enough and your brain and body may not function because the fuel you need to drive them is simply not being supplied. In fact, whereas your sugar levels can rise to dangerously high levels, similarly, they can fall to dangerously low levels too. A plummeting of sugar levels can cause dizziness and fainting and lack of energy. It doesn’t have to be the actual sugar crystals that need to be consumed but sugar in some form. But take too much and it plays with your brain and could lead to Type 2 diabetes and a host of other sugar related illnesses such as fatty liver, heart disease, insulin problems and tooth decay. But stay away from some consumables that say they’re sugar-free. If they still taste sweet then something else has been added to make them sweet. Aspartame has never been good for you but it’s added as an artificial sweetener to most sugar-free products. People drink and eat sweet foods laden with aspartame and think they’re being good but in the long run they’re hurting themselves.

The same seems to apply to salt as well. Just like sugar, salt is bad for you but at the same time, it is also vital to your body’s functions. Patients with hypertension avoid salts altogether not knowing that some salt is essential for their body. I’ve known doctors in famous hospitals administer salt drips to stroke patients because they were dangerously low.

Fats are also good and bad for you? But I hear it depends on what kind of fats they are. Are they saturated, unsaturated, polyunsaturated? Who knows? That all sounds very confusing and because of that confusion people are put off trying to find out what the good fats are. My advice? Eat fat but be moderate about it. Too much fat can clog your arteries, cause heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity and strokes. But not enough and you may find that your brain isn’t functioning well, have joint pains and feel generally unwell. Eat right and be healthy.