The miracle of sleep
Much has been known about the importance of a good diet and exercise, towards well-being. However, there’s one pivotal stakeholder in this triumvirate.
Sleep — this can either accentuate the other two or make your other efforts completely ineffective and meaningless.
I’ve provided a couple of good links for those who are keen to understand the science behind what happens at sleep and how one can improve it. I am not a scientist, doctor or biologist to go as deep as these illustrious guys can, I’ll stick to some of the stuff that I’ve experienced and learned. You are forewarned to just take this content as my opinion and not scientific advice, though I have referred various research papers to be as authentic as I can.
The housekeeping brilliance:
Think of sleep as housekeeping — cleaning your house and getting you ready for tomorrow while putting you on ‘rest’ mode, pretty much like what happens to a computer. There are two angles to it — things that happen to your body and brain.
Coming to housekeeping in your brain — throwing out all garbage, and keeping things that are important to you. Essentially, you need to store memories (short and long-term) that are useful (which you will recall), flushing out memories that you haven’t really used at all (optimising for space and efficiency, perhaps). Even if we aren’t educated in neuroscience — such behaviour makes perfect logical sense.
Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, who studies sleep at the University of Rochester, says,
“While you sleep, your brain is working. Sleep helps prepare your brain to learn, remember, and create”
One may well remember that the brain flashes all the important moments of your life before you die.
“I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time” — Lester Burnham.
Good sleep and productivity:
There are a few important factors when it comes to defining a healthy and refreshing sleep.
- Quantity (time)
- Quality (deep or shallow)
- Consistency of schedule
In today’s world, one is used to hearing people working 15–18 hours a day, that’s the cool aid that’s been sold to youngsters and us alike. However, this is detrimental and doesn’t add any value, forget the long term, even in the short term. Various research shows that people who get a healthy sleep, as defined above, tend to be more productive at work.
Contrary to popular belief, sleeping less doesn’t mean you’ll get more done. In fact, studies have found that people who sleep five to six hours a night are 19% less productive than people who sleep seven to eight hours a night. Catching less than five hours a night bumps your productivity down by 29%.
I wrote about sleeping patterns in my previous blog, and it took a lot of effort to get it sorted, but once you settle down with a routine, it’s pretty smooth. Eventually, this will give you a good ‘high’ that you will look forward to. Plus, feeling the freshness of the next morning is something you wouldn’t want to miss.
Have you felt a bit of fogginess or inactive feeling in the mornings, right after you wake up? How long does it take for you to become truly active? Why does it happen? Why aren’t your eyes fully operational?
Typically, I’ve timed it to be about 20–30 minutes for the brain to wake up, even if the body is moving and one goes about the morning chores without much thinking. This has been attributed to the brain still not being fully ‘awake’, the ‘sleep inertia’ and there’s no shortcut but to give it the time required to reboot. On days when the sleep is sound, you will tend to regain alertness a tad quicker. I wouldn’t call it a hack, but getting out to the balcony (or any open space) to feel the air and looking up the sky (preferably the sun, if it is out) seems to help a bit.
Adenosine — is a neurotransmitter that plays a vital role in the need for sleep. It keeps increasing through the day, when we are awake and as it reaches a threshold, it signals the body, “Hey, that’s enough, I need you to sleep”, thereby reducing itself through the night to maintain equillibrium, or homeostasis.
Similarly, it has been shown through research that the brain typically cannot function at its cognitive best when you are awake for too long. The part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) that has to think deeper, perform complex tasks, etc needs to be cooled off (think of an engine over heating).
Influential theories suggested that fatigue is a sort of illusion cooked up by the brain to make us stop whatever we are doing and turn to a more gratifying activity.
The brain naturally gravitates towards lesser demanding tasks, essentially avoiding “burn-out” (well, the engine needs air or water coolant systems). So, for those who think that they can do “highly effective” work for more than say 10–12 hours a day — well, the science doesn’t seem to back that up (there are always exceptions to the rule).
Even professional chess players start making mistakes, typically after 4–5 hours in the game, which they would not make when well rested,” the study authors write.
Intricate, complex:
Sleep is a very complex topic that continues to be studied and researched even today, as much as people try to find more about the genius our brain is. There are several other nuances to sleep — such as hormonal regulation, muscle repair, memory formation, immunity, etc.
It would be impossible for me to cover all of them, as I intended to just highlight some key parts that could potentially be useful for the layman. Today, most of us are very distracted, endlessly and mindlessly scrolling stuff for some entertainment (may be due to boredom), but our body isn’t attuned evolutionarily for such activities (there are always exceptions).
Among the trinity (exercise, diet, sleep) — if even you aren’t an active person physically, getting yourself regular good sleep is strongly recommended, give it a few weeks to settle your cycle and see the sleep miracle unfold.
And yes, it’s the only time you are wholly and solely lonely!
Catch me while I’m sleepin’ on
Maybe while I’m dreaming too
References:
a) Huberman’s Toolkit:
b) Matt Walker’s Podcast:
c) Sleep and productivity:
