We should be spending a third of our lives asleep, and yet we are all running around over caffeinated and exhausted. Restful sleep is essential for good health, in that ensuring quality sleep helps protect your both mental and physical well-being. For children and teens, sleep also helps support growth and development. Sleep deficiency alters brain activity and can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and mood. Sleep deficiency also has been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior.
Sleep allows your brain work as efficiently as possible. While you’re sleeping, your brain is processing all the information that you learned the previous day and preparing for the next. Without it, it would not be able to repair and form new pathways which support learning and retention. Studies have shown that a good night’s sleep improves learning.
Sleep is vital for your physical health as well. During sleep your body is able to regulate hormones, heal damage to blood vessels, organs and muscles, and keep your immune system working effectively. Sleep deficiency has been linked to increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. Because of its effects on hormones, sleep deficiency results in a higher than normal blood sugar level, which increases your risk for diabetes and obesity.
Getting enough quality sleep helps you function well throughout the day. People who are sleep deficient are less productive, have a slower reaction time, and make more mistakes. Studies have shown that sleep deficiency can harms your driving ability more than being drunk can.
Things most likely to cause problems with sleep:
- Stress is the number one cause of sleeping issues!
- Drinking alcohol before bed
- Consuming caffeine later in the day
- Exercising close to bedtime
- Working shiftwork
- Doing mentally intense activities right before bed
- Traveling
- A room that’s too hot or cold, too noisy or too brightly lit can harm sleep quality
- Comfort and size of your bed
- habits of your sleep partner
We all know that sleep is important. But what can you do to improve your sleep?
Understanding the basics might help. While you sleep, you go through cycles of sleep stages. The first stage in a sleep cycle is light sleep, followed by deep sleep and a dream state referred to as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. A full sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes and is normally repeated several times each night.
One of the easiest ways to improve sleep quality is making sure you go to bed with enough time to go through full 90 min cycles, and not wake up in the middle of one (i.e. giving yourself enough time to sleep 6, 7.5, or 9 hours a night). I have found personally that if I go to bed at 8:30 or 10, to wake up at 4, I feel a lot better rested then if I go to bed in between those times. More often than not I will wake up a few minutes before my alarm.
Other things you can do to improve the quality of your sleep:
- Eat well and get regular exercise
- Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule
- Don’t drink caffeine in the evening
- Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before sleep
- Minimize noise, light and excessive temperatures where you sleep
- Develop a regular bed time and go to bed at the same time each night (even weekends!)
- Try and wake up without an alarm clock
- Attempt to go to bed earlier every night for certain period; this will ensure that you’re getting enough sleep
[1] https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/node/4605
[2] http://www.apa.org/topics/sleep/why.aspx
