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I like to admit that I love to sleep, a person cannot be any more peaceful than when he/she is sleeping. Arguably there is no soothing sight than watching a baby sleeping peacefully. It’s about time to understand how sleep works and how it’s helping you.

Sleep is one of the most important parts of your life, you spend one-third of your life sleeping. If it’s such an imperative part of your life, you need to get the best out of it since it’s one-third of your life. Even though you don’t recognize it as an important section of your life, your body is working continuously, fixing and healing and storing the energy when you’re sleeping. Massive reconstruction and communication are also taking place in your head during this period. During sleep, your body is working to get you energetic, refreshed, and productive for the upcoming day.

The true biological purpose of sleep remains a mystery, but every tissue and organ in your body is affected by sleep. Studies have shown that chronic lack of sleep, poor quality of sleep can cause dangerous health conditions including, but not limited to, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, obesity and cardiovascular diseases. This article is a detailed description of sleep and how it’s affecting you.

Where Does Sleep Originate From?

There is no single structure in your brain that’s solely responsible for your sleep. Structures like the,

• The suprachiasmatic nucleus [SCN]: Located in the hypothalamus of your brain, acts as the headquarters of sleep and arousal.
• Brain Stem: Found at the base of your brain, communicate with the hypothalamus where they control the rhythm of awake and asleep. Other structures found in the brain stem like pons play a special role in the Random Eye Movement [REM] stage of sleep. Pons relax your muscles that are used for movements, so we don’t act out our dreams.
• Thalamus: Thalamus is one of the information centres of your brain where short to long term memory is processed, it is only active during the REM cycle. When sleep enters into the REM cycle, the thalamus sends images, sound, and other sensations that were previously saved in your memory to make a beautiful dream.
• Pineal Gland: Located in the brain which receives signals from the SCN and produces the sleep hormone melatonin, which makes you sleep when it’s dark. Melatonin is an FDA approved safe sleep supplement that is taken as an Over-The-Counter sleep inducer.
• The basal forebrain: Cells found in the basal forebrain supports sleep drive by producing a chemical called adenosine. And caffeine counteracts the effects of adenosine.

What Are The Sleep Stages?

Sleep stages are mainly divided into rapid eye movement [REM] sleep and non-rapid eye movement [non-REM], where non-REM is subdivided into three. All the sleep cycles have specific brain waves and brain activity. This study is called a sleep study. It’s normal for you to run through all the sleep cycles multiple times in a single sleep. There are speculations of 5 sleep stages, but as per trusted resources, there are only 4 stages including the REM stage. Here is detailed information about each sleep stage.

• Stage 1: is a non-REM stage, which lasts for a few minutes where you drift from being awake to sleep. Slight twitch and shaking of your body is a normal process during this stage because of your dreams. This is considered to be a light sleep as your body slows down the heartbeat, breathing and eye movement, brain waves will continue to slow down its frequency of awake to sleep.
• Stage 2: is a non-REM stage, a light sleep phase right before you enter deeper sleep. Your heart rate, breathing, body temperature will come down, and your muscle will relax even further. Your eye movement will stop. Brain activity during this stage will come down, but it’s normal to see multiple sudden bursts of electrical activity. Stage 2 is the most repeated stage of your sleep than any other stage.
• Stage 3: is a non-REM stage, where you enter into the deep sleep phase, this stage of sleep is longer in the 1st half of your sleep. Your heart rate and breathing are at the lowest possible rate during this stage. Brain waves go even slower in frequency. Your muscles are relaxed so much that it’s difficult to wake a person from this stage.
• REM Sleep: Commonly known as the dreamy phase of your sleep, usually occurs after 90 minutes of sleep initiation, and this recurs every 90 minutes of your sleep. Your eyes move rapidly from side to side behind your closed eyelids. Your brain projects a wave that’s similar to being seen in a wakefulness state. During this stage, heartbeat, breathing and body temperature and blood pressure elevate. To avoid acting out our dreams, your movement muscles are temporarily paralyzed. As you age, REM sleep tends to be short in time.

How Much Sleep Is Enough Sleep?

There is no universally recognized sleep time for any individual. Sleep time and sleep pattern change with age, location, work and it depends on a lot of variables. Individuals in a similar age group can also have different sleep needs and duration.

How much deep sleep do you need? Stage 3 is known as where you get your deep sleep, it is also known as slow-wave sleep, deep sleep can last from 20 to 90 minutes in a period, it constitutes 10–15 per cent of your sleep. In simple words, if you get 8 hours of healthy sleep, about 60 to 150 minutes of that sleep is meant to be a deep sleep. Studies have shown that you need less deep sleep as you age.

What happens in deep sleep? During Stage 3 sleep, your body goes into repair and construction mode by,

• Healing and growing tissues.
• Building muscles and bones.
• Memory consolidation.
• Balancing metabolism like blood sugar level.
• Strengthening your immune systems.
• The brain detoxifies.

Symptoms of sleep deprivation can be found in individuals without quality deep sleep. But there are no side effects found from a long deep sleep cycle.

An individual with sleep deprivation, stress, poor quality of sleep, fever, and other medication can cause disruption that can make an individual walk during sleep, this condition is called somnambulism, sleepwalking usually occurs during Stage three.

Narcolepsy is another sleep disorder where an individual constantly falls asleep during day time. Studies have shown that narcolepsy is caused by a disturbance in sleep regulation and individuals skip the initial phase of sleep and directly go to REM sleep, even in short naps. This reduces their Stage 3 deep sleep and causes irregular sleep patterns.

How much REM sleep do you need? There is no set amount of time you need to spend in REM cycles, but the majority of your dream occur in this cycle and studies have shown that dreaming helps you to process emotions, and it can also aid in processing short term to long term memories.

During initial REM sleep, this stage can last from 1 to 10 minutes, but this period can progress as an individual cycle through all the stages again and again. It is also possible to have an hour-long REM cycle in the final REM cycle run.

A healthy adult can spend 20 to 25 percent of his sleep on the REM cycle alone. During the REM cycle, our body undergoes temporary paralysis [atonia]. If someone is disturbed during their REM sleep, they can act out of their dream.

Infants and babies tend to spend 50 percent of their sleep in the REM cycle. Babies spend around 16 to 18 hours a day doing nothing but sleeping, it’s a large amount of REM sleep they get. The other 50 percent is divided with Stage 1 to 3 of non-REM.

In REM sleep disorder, normal temporary paralysis of the muscles can be absent, in this condition abnormal movements of the movement can be found. The cause of this disorder is still under study.

How much Light Sleep do you need? Stages 1 and 2 are responsible for your light sleep. There is no prescribed time frame you need for light sleep. It’s nearly impossible to fall asleep without going through light sleep.

What is the amount of sleep growing children should get? As kids grow their appetite for sleep will vary, and as they age, their time spent on sleep will also decrease over time.

How To Improve Deep Sleep?

To improve deep sleep, let’s understand deep sleep!

What is deep sleep? Deep sleep is a phase of your sleep cycle that last 20 to 90 minutes per cycle, you can have up to 4 or 6 sleep cycles per night/nap. Deep sleep is when you achieve your maximum relaxation, your heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure at the lowest.

It is the most important stage of sleep for a healthy, productive day. Poor deep sleep quality can ruin your day by sleep deprivation, depression, and other mental and physical irritations and disorders.

10 Scientific Steps to Improve Deep sleep

1. Engage in a stress-relieving measure.
2. Eating a healthy diet.
3. Moderate exercise 90 minutes before sleep.
4. Schedule your sleep and wake up time each day.
5. Avoid caffeinated and alcoholic beverages before bed.
6. Room for sleep; the soul purpose for the bedroom should be to sleep, Avoid loud music systems, and blue light and or bright lights, TV or computers in your bedroom.
7. Keep Rituals before bed as a warm bath, reading, hot chocolate etcetera.
8. Sleep in a cool room.
9. Use a night blind or eye mask.
10. Don’t lie awake in bed. If you are unable to sleep, don’t wait for sleep, get up and read, listen to music, walk in the house, but do not use your mobile phones during this period.

Why Is It Important To Have Good Sleep?

We all know that we need 7–9 hours of sleep for an adult. That’s the wrong way to look at it, we need 7 to 9 hours of quality or healthy sleep.

A night of good deep sleep is very necessary for a productive and active lifestyle. Like food and water, sleep is an everyday need and poor sleep quality and regiment can harm your health and cause mental and emotional stress. Poor sleep quality or sleep deprivation can cause,

• Memory loss.
• High blood pressure.
• Depression.
• Anxiety.
• Mood disorders.
• Diabetes Mellitus.
• General fatigue.
• Suicidal Thoughts.
• Cardiovascular disorder.
• Chronic Lung illness.
• Obesity/weight gain.
• Reduction in muscle mass.
• Stroke.
• Insulin deficiency.
• Central hormone imbalance.
• Irregular menstrual cycles.
• Loss of concentration.
• Reduced reflexes.
• Decreased sex drive.
• Weakened immunity.
• Poor motor skills and balance.
• Decreased daily productivity.

And many more other medical and psychological conditions can start from lack of good sleep.

Please refer to the sleep calculator for finding your ideal sleep window.

Sleep is one of the most important periods in our lives, it is the point in time where we grow and heal. A night of good sleep can give you a good healthy life. If you are not able to sleep properly or if you are always waking up tired for a long time, you might have to consult your doctor for evaluation. You can use various gadgets and trackers to study your sleep pattern.

You can get a professional sleep study if your doctor advises you so. There is no good satisfaction than a good night’s sleep. We hope to shed some light on your quest of understanding sleep.

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