Why we should normalize caring about sleeping

Published in

Heartbest

8 min readSep 29, 2021

In the last 2 years a lot has been done to promote wellness in all its components. However, in our culture, sleep is one of the most undervalued. We applaud hard work and productivity but we usually confuse them with working extra hours, or just doing a lot. As part of this belief we think sleeping means laziness. If we don’t want to wake up at 5 am to do some exercise, we are lazy, if we don’t want to go to a party on weekdays we are boring, if we don’t want to stay on the gathering after 10 pm we are “old”, if we don’t want to answer work emails at 9 pm we are unproductive or not compromised. However, besides eating & drinking water, sleeping is the most necessary activity we need to survive and thrive. So why do we keep mistreating our bodies?.

Don’t get me wrong, just like you I’ve been down this path. I’ve had trouble sleeping since I was a kid, and I’ve told myself a lot of things (which I truly believed) about my sleep habits: I don’t need to sleep that much, I’ll just sleep this Saturday, I’ll have time to sleep when I die, I need to finish this I’ll just take a coffee, etc… And while I do have problems to fall asleep at a decent hour, it’s something I need to work on and fix, because not sleeping can damage my body and mind, just like yours.

So I’ll like to address this issue by answering some of our false beliefs on the subject. But first there are some things you need to know about how we sleep.

Sleep phases

Yes, you probably already know them (if you do skip it) but for the sake of those who don’t I’ll explain it.

REM (Rapid Eye Movement) is the phase of our sleep when our mind is almost as active as when we’re awake, our body is kind of paralyzed, and we dream.
NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement) is the phase when we sleep deeply, it’s really hard to wake us up at this moment but it is also when our body fixes itself. We have 3 to 4 phases of NREM when we sleep.

We change from REM to NREM various times, but the important thing is to go through at least 3 phases of NREM because the third one is the one were we actually rest and restore ourselves:

Stage 1: Stage of light sleep when you are in between being awake and falling asleep.
Stage 2: The onset of sleep. This is when you become disengaged from your surroundings, and your body temperature drops.
Stage 3&4: The deepest sleep stage. This is when tissue growth and repair happen, and energy is restored. During this stage, several hormones are released that control functions ranging from growth and development to appetite.

Hormones

Sleeping is a process made by and that affects the functioning of hormones. And as you know hormones regulate everything that happens in our body. From feeling happy to growth. These are the hormones that are involved:

Cortisol
Estrogen and progesterone
Hunger hormones, like insulin, leptin, and ghrelin
Melatonin
Thyroid hormones
Growth hormones

Now that we are a little more familiar with the sleeping process let’s dive in more by questioning our beliefs:

I don’t need to sleep much, I feel fine

So false. While our sleeping time needs vary as we grow up, the truth is that from 18 years old forward we need around 7 to 9 hours of sleep, depending on our body’s needs.

Generally people that sleep less, say they don’t need more or that they’ve adapted. But the truth is, people don’t adapt to sleeping less. You may feel like you’re OK because now you’re used to it, but this sleep deprivation still affects your function. It can be from harming your judgment or reaction time (which you may think is OK but actually it’s not) to alterations in your immune system, weight control, or other function in your body.

2. I slept but I didn’t rest

This is so true. Sleeping doesn’t mean resting. In order to rest and fully recover you must enter all REM & NREM phases during a good night’s sleep; which is important to have on a regular basis for optimal hormone regulation. This includes sleeping long enough and deeply enough.

If you sleep lightly or wake up constantly, it means you’re not having quality sleep, and therefore, your body isn’t going through its recovery process.

3. There’s nothing wrong I’m just tired

True & False. Of course the first and direct consequence of not sleeping right is feeling tired. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Like we read before, sleeping well maintains a bunch of hormones functioning correctly (see list above to remember those hormones), therefore you’re not only tired, you may have experience more stress; your reproductive system may be affected; your thyroid may slow down (slowing your metabolism); there can be a disruption in your hunger, appetite, and food intake, leading to weight gain; your immune system may be weakening; and your growth hormone may get affected (no muscular recovery, no immunity, changes in metabolism and poorly protein production).

“Studies have shown that lack of sleep can lead to other serious health conditions. Poor sleeping patterns have been associated with hypertension, obesity, glucose intolerance, and insulin resistance. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to hypogonadism (low testosterone) in men.” (Hormone HealthNetwork)

4. It doesn’t matter when, as long as I sleep 8 hours.

False! We’ve already seen that sleeping less than 7 hours means my body isn’t recovering. Now when we sleep is also important. This might be a little difficult for everyone because of jobs’ shifts and people who might be nocturnal (they feel more creative or productive at night). However, sleeping at night is vital.

We all function based on a circadian rhythm or sleep-wake cycle. The SCN (suprachiasmatic nucleus) is responsible for regulating this cycle; and it does it by receiving direct inputs from a class of nerve cells in the retina that act as brightness detectors (Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem, 2006). Which means that when these receptors capt daylight they send to the rest of the body and brain the signals to activate our day cycle, making your cortisol to peak and start functions; and as the light starts fading out during the transition of day to night, cortisol starts diminishing while the production of melatonin starts. We need this to happen to get sleepy and fall asleep, if cortisol isn’t inhibited and/ melatonin isn’t produced, we won’t be able to sleep. Meaning that during the day it’s really hard for our body to fall asleep and less of all sleep well.

5. Starting your day at 4 am makes you more productive.

True & False. A lot has been said about the 4 am club. This list of entrepreneurs and leaders who claim that in order to be productive you have to start early, as in 4 am. And in the hope of becoming as successful as them we’ve believed it and even tried it. While this might be effective because it is when everyone else is sleeping so you can work more focused and faster; there’s a reason why everyone else is sleeping!

If you are a 7 hours of sleep needed type of person this means you have to go to sleep at 9 pm. Not so bad if you can arrange your schedule. But if you’re a 9 hours of sleep needed kind of person, you would have to go to sleep at 7 pm. Which may not be very easy to fix in your agenda, besides of the fact that it’s still not dark at that time, so your body is probably not going to want to sleep then. and if you sleep less, your mind will not be at its highest, which kind of pitfalls the theory.

The same happens for waking up. Because at 4am there’s still no light, your body is going to go through more trouble to wake up, and the cortisol might take more to kick in, making your wake-cycle start more slowly.

6. I’ll catch up on the weekend

False again. According to Gotfried on his study Change in Sleep Duration and Cognitive Function: Findings from the Whitehall II Study; more sleep isn’t always better. If you sleep 4 hours per night for 5 days, you have around a 24-hour sleep debt [at the end of the week], you can’t make that up in a weekend. Not only didn’t you reach the NREM phases during the weekday, you’ll just sleep excessively during the weekend. Neither sleeping less is good nor sleeping too much.

Too much sleep can lead to: