Sleep - It's Not How Much, But When

By Carmen Gilfillan

If you're someone who didn't sleep so well last night for whatever reason, you may be feeling a little jaded as you read this. This is understandable. You may well be thinking that just by getting your so-called 'eight hours' of sleep for the next few nights may redress the balance.

This is true, to an extent. You'll learn more about why I say 'to an extent' in a moment.

However, you may also be someone who did get your eight hours last night, and the night before and the night before, but for some reason you feel you're not firing on all cylinders. This also understandable, and you're about to find out why.

Not All Sleep Is Equal

We may think that all sleep is equal. But it isn't. The quality of our sleep varies from one part of the night to another. Our bodies have a natural rhythm to them, and that rhythm is thousands of years old. It is called a circadian rhythm.

It is the rhythm of nature, and one that animals instinctively live by. We are as human beings essentially animal, and are designed to live according to this natural rhythmic cycle.

That cycle can be seen in the passage of the day and the passage of the seasons. We have the dawn of the day (Spring) where we wake up. We then move into the main part of our day (Summer) when we are most adapted to work. This is followed by winding down towards the end of the day (Autumn) and finally sleeping at night (Winter).

We are therefore naturally designed to wake up with the rising of the sun and sleep when the sun goes down. When we adjust our lifestyle to accommodate this natural rhythm we have a better quality of sleep.

Our Natural Sleep Cycles

Similar to this natural rhythmic cycle, our sleep pattern also has a natural cycle to it. When we sleep we oscillate between deep regenerative sleep (where the body repairs itself) to the slightly lighter REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep state in which we dream.

These sleep cycles last for around 90 minutes each. So if you are finding that you are getting eight hours sleep and you still feel tired when you wake up, you're probably setting your alarm clock to wake you up in the middle of a sleep cycle rather than at the end of it.

For example if you went to bed at 11pm and woke up at 8am you would have slept for nine hours and gone through six complete sleep cycles. These would be:

Cycle 1. 11.00 pm-12.30 am

Cycle 2. 12.30 am-2.00 am

Cycle 3. 2.00 am-3.30 am

Cycle 4. 3.30 am-5.00 am

Cycle 5. 5.00 am-6.30 am

Cycle 6. 6.30 am-8.00 am

After sleeping from 11pm to 8am, you'd probably feel quite refreshed when you woke up.

If, however, you set your alarm to wake you up at 7am you would have got eight hours of sleep, but would have woken up during a 90-minute sleep cycle (between 6.30 and 8.00). Therefore it's possible you wouldn't feel quite as refreshed on waking as you would do if you had woken up at 8.00am

Repair & Rejuvenation

In addition to these shorter, 90 minute, cycles, according to our circadian rhythm, the body regenerates and rejuvenates itself most significantly between the hours of 10pm and 2am.

So you may be going to bed at say 1am and sleeping until 9am to get your eight hours, but you're losing out on three vital hours of body repair time every night. And if you work shift patterns, especially the night shift, you may be throwing your circadian rhythm out completely, denying yourself the chance of adequately repairing your body during sleep.

3 Top Sleep Tips

So to give yourself a higher chance of improving your performance, productivity and subsequent results in life consider the following three tips:

1. Bring your lifestyle in line with your natural circadian rhythm and get to bed by 10pm

2. Ensure that you have eight or more hours of sleep per night

3. Try not to wake up to an alarm clock. If you must, set it such that you're waking up at the end of a 90-minute sleep cycle rather than in the middle of it

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Just One Tip to Improve Your Quality of Sleep

By Preety Gurditta

You may be expecting to read a few health tips in this article to alter your diet that may enhance your quality of sleep. Relax, none of that is going to happen in the next twelve minutes of your life. By the time you are done going through this piece of writing, you may want to implement just one change in your daily routine to have a better life.

Sleep is something that comes naturally to us, but we like to deprive ourselves of it for countless reasons. Can you recall when you were a teenager, you would never mind sacrificing a siesta if you felt something was more important than just sleeping? All the same, it was never just Sleep. Many of us would never realize the importance of taking a nap at least until the age of 25. As soon as we come close to our thirties, we begin appreciating the need to be dead to the world for minimum six to eight hours daily. And we do not want to compromise on that, no matter how much fun a party is.

Is it imperative to sleep?

Can you answer this question in No? Of course, you cannot. Insomnia- the word was coined not without any reason. People do understand what havoc their body may undergo if they are not able to slumber for any reason even for a night. For an extreme example of an insomniac person, you can watch the movie, The Machinist. The simple, yet profound movie will give you a picture perfect idea of what all can happen to your mind and body if you do not sleep for a long time.

Not sleeping at all is, of course, a severe situation. Still, many of us do not even notice that we are not able to sleep properly throughout our lives. You may have noticed that one person in your office who feels dizzy all the time. Or that one guy in your class who yawns every time you see him. That obese girl in your school, who you make fun of, may be overweight just because she does not sleep well. Among dozens of side-effects of tossing and turning through the night, the most important one is that you forget your sense of being and start feeling downbeat about life.

It is strange, but common that we accept the substandard quality of sleep just for the sake of it. Even when we know that we need to have a deep sleep every night, we come to terms with all the disturbances in our body just because we feel there is no solution to it. Don't worry. The solution is right there with you, and you do not need to visit a dietician or physician for it.

What is the way out of sleeplessness?

Have you heard of a thing called Smartphone? Yes, it is right there; maybe in your hand right now. The laptops, Smartphones, Kindle, Tablets, and TV- all these electronic gadgets have made your life easier without a doubt. You may feel much more informed than ever just because you can afford the luxury of a Smartphone and the Internet. Maybe you do realize that you should spend a little less time on your mobile phone than you do at present. Still, it may be hard for you to ditch it.

No one is asking you to get rid of your mobile phone forever. You do need it in your life for better reasons than anyone can judge. However, a Smartphone is something that has improved as well as worsened our life at the same time. We cannot think of our life without this small gadget in our hand at all times. Still, you need to identify with the fact that it does interfere with your sleep.

What is the reason to keep your mobile away?

While sleeping, all of us have a habit of checking the messages that may have arrived on WhatsApp. We feel the obligation to reply to those messages. After all, it is our duty to respond to our loved ones, right? Yes, indeed. Then, after we are done with WhatsApp, we open Facebook; then is the turn of Instagram, and maybe Snapchat at last. So this is the never-ending cycle that repeats roughly every night. Perhaps, you might not indulge in this habit when you are exhausted. Still, you do keep your mobile by your side when you doze off, right? Keeping your phone away while you sleep is the only thing this entire ordeal is about.

In addition to making mistakes in our diet and routine, we just make one simple blooper of placing our cell phone at the bedside or even under the pillow while sleeping. Life already is tough these days. The last thing we would want to think about in our sleep is the worries that we face during the day. When you are about to sleep, you visit the entire world in just an hour or two over the social media. However, you must have noticed that when you are sleeping with your mobile at your arm's length, your hand automatically starts searching for it as soon as your sleep is interrupted.

You may feel thirsty at night, for instance, but instead of reaching for water at first, you would like to look for a message from your beloved that may flash on your screen. But how would you feel if that one message is something you didn't want to see? It may become a cause of anxiety for you for the rest of the night. You may not be able to do something about such things at 3 am, but you will lose your sleep over it. Similarly, you may want to go to the washroom late at night. You reach for your phone to see the time, but you do not realize that the light of the screen is harmful to your eyes. If you have sensitive eyes, you should not look at your phone during your sleep at all.

How to sleep without your mobile?

You may think what kind of ridiculous idea is that? How would you wake up in the morning without your alarm clock in the phone? The answer is Alarm Clock! That cute little piece of a clock on your table that you dumped away years ago is the only thing that you need on your table rather than your mobile phone for the entire night. Those little notification alerts keep you disturbed all night. Even if you keep your phone on the Silent mode, the curiosity to check your phone at every possible minute will not go away.

It may seem difficult to sleep without your phone at first, but it is an achievable feat. You would feel uncomfortable for a couple of days and miss your phone. In spite of this, after a week or so, you would definitely feel the difference in your quality of sleep. You will start having a deep sleep and wake up fresher than earlier.

The idea is to keep your phone in your cupboard or such a place where you cannot reach it with ease. When you are in a deep sleep, making efforts to reach for your phone is the last thing you would want to do. When it becomes difficult for you to pick up the cell phone, you would just come to your bed and enjoy your sleep. Yes, taking forty winks becomes much more enjoyable when you do not have any interruptions around you. Do not rely on any mobile applications that claim to evaluate your quality of sleep. For such applications to work, you have to keep your phone very close to you, which is not a good idea at all. Just notice the way your body feels when you wake up in the morning. Your own body is the biggest evaluator of everything that affects it, positively or negatively.

Isn't it worth your health to give it a try? Try keeping your mobile phone away from you tonight and notice how you feel the next morning. If you feel good, you can add value to your living just with one simple idea. Little things like these do make life more pleasant. Take a crack at them.

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How Is Technology Affecting Your Sleep?

By Ahish Sangle

Research indicates that adults require 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night to function properly. However, not many can say that they've had a restful night, and studies prove that technology is one of the many factors to blame. While our smartphones and tablets make life easier in many ways, they might also be responsible for all those times we wake up feeling grumpy and sleep deprived. It might not be difficult to recover from this initial grogginess, but prolonged sleep deprivation is known to cause reduced cognitive functioning, mood swings and chronic health problems like high blood pressure and heart disease.

If you find yourself longing for a good night's sleep, understanding how technology affects your sleep patterns can help you to take small steps to start sleeping better.

It Affects your Body Clock

Everybody has a body clock that regulates their sleeping schedule - it tells us when to sleep and wake up. This clock is controlled by the hormone 'melatonin'. Research has found that blue light emitted from digital screens (our laptops or smartphones) suppresses melatonin, interfering with our body clocks. This disruption causes irregularities in our sleep cycles that have an effect on our mood - making us feel tired, irritable and prone to experiencing anger and hostility. Additionally, there's also research to show that constant fatigue is responsible for poor decision making in logical, rule-based tasks.

Sleep Better: Start by creating a sleep-friendly zone in your bedroom. Do this by establishing one simple ground rule-no electronics in the bedroom. Yes, this includes your laptop and television! If keeping your electronics outside the bedroom seems too difficult a task, follow the rule of 'no electronics use in the bedroom' post a certain time in the night (preferably 30 to 60 minutes prior to bedtime). This in turn will allow you to fall asleep quickly.

It's Keeping You Awake

There's nothing more frustrating than finally falling asleep but hearing the buzz of incoming notifications from your phone. To avoid the negative effects associated with sleep deprivation, it's important to get a full night's rest rather than fragmented periods of sleep. This fragmentation interrupts memory processes and research indicates that it affects our performance on tasks related to attention and memory.

Sleep Better: Switching off your phone and any device that might wake you up in the middle of the night would be ideal, however if that sounds too extreme, put your phone on the silent, and/or no vibrate mode.

It Enables Sleep Procrastination

Ever told yourself that you are so exhausted that you must sleep by 11:00 pm, but then you find yourself watching a YouTube video or texting a friend at 12:30 am? It happens with all of us. The use of technology often leads to sleep procrastination, which involves going to bed later than intended, even though there are no legitimate external circumstances accountable for doing so.

Sleep Better: Start by identifying the cause of your procrastination. If the cause is binge watching a television show, try turning off the television and your laptop half an hour before your bedtime and use that half hour to get your body to power down. You can do this by having a glass of milk, changing into pyjamas or reading.

Use it Wisely to Sleep Better

With the right kind of technology, you can actually regulate your sleep cycle. A number of fitness trackers are widely available today and can be worn around the wrist to track your sleep. Such trackers provide data about the number of hours of sleep as well as the quality of sleep. As a result, they allow you to set sleep goals and calculate your progress towards achieving these goals.

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