Healthline
The Sleep Science
An overview
The impact of sleep on health and well-being is being explored more than ever before these days. Sleep specialists study the science of sleep, including sleep stages, the biological clock, health connections, and other topics. They test the efficacy of common sleep technologies like sleep trackers and sleep enhancers like melatonin, and they pioneer new treatment options for chronic sleep deprivation and sleep disorders.
One-quarter to one-third of a person’s life is spent sleeping. But what happens when you go to sleep?
Before the 1950’s, most people thought sleep was a passive activity during which the body and brain were dormant. ‘However, it turns out that sleep is a period during which the brain is involved in a number of tasks essential to life — activities that are strongly linked to quality of life,’ says Mark Wu, M.D., Ph.D., a John Hopkins sleep expert and neurologist.
Many of Wu’s waking hours are spent trying to learn more about these processes and how they affect mental and physical health.
Here’s a look at some of sleep experts’ most compelling (and often surprising) findings — and what they’re still attempting to figure out about the science of sleep.
All sleep isn’t created equal
Your brain will cycle through two forms of sleep during your sleep: REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep.
Non-REM sleep, which is divided into four stages, is the initial part of the cycle. Between being awake and going asleep is the first stage. The second type of sleep is light sleep, which occurs when the heart rate and breathing rate stabilize and the body temperature declines. Deep sleep is the third and fourth stages of sleep. Though it was previously thought that REM sleep was the most critical sleep phase for learning and memory, emerging evidence suggests that non-REM sleep is more crucial for this. It also serves as the more restful and restorative sleep time.
When you cycle into REM sleep, your eyelids move rapidly behind closed lids, and your brain waves are comparable to those of awareness. As we dream, our breathing rate increases and our bodies become briefly paralyzed.
After that, the cycle repeats itself, except this time you spend less time in stages three and four of sleep and more time in REM sleep. On a typical night, you’ll cycle through four or five times.
The sleep controls in your body
Sleep is regulated by two basic processes, according to Wu: circadian rhythms and sleep drive.
A biological clock housed in the brain regulates circadian rhythms. One of the clock’s main functions is to respond to light cues by increasing the production of the hormone melatonin at night and then turning it off when it detects light.
Sleep drive is also important: your body desires sleep, just like it craves food. Your urge for sleep increases during the day, and when it reaches a particular height, you must sleep. The following is a key distinction between sleep and hunger: Your body can’t make you eat when you’re hungry, but it can put you to sleep when you’re exhausted, even if you’re at a meeting or driving.
When you’re tired, your body can even go into microsleep for one or two seconds while keeping your eyes open. By lowering your body’s sleep drive, napping for more than 30 minutes later in the day can disrupt your night’s sleep, one of the reasons why you don’t sleep at the same time each night.
Sleep is required for health
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever felt hazy after a bad night’s sleep that sleep has a big impact on brain function. To begin, adequate sleep is necessary for “brain plasticity,” or the ability of the brain to adjust to new information. We can’t digest what we’ve learned during the day if we don’t get enough sleep, and we’ll have a harder time remembering it later on. Researchers also believe that sleep aids in the clearance of waste products from brain cells, which occurs more slowly when the brain is awake.
Sleep is also necessary for the rest of the body. When people don’t get enough sleep, their health risks increases. Depression, seizures, high blood pressure, and headaches become more severe. Immunity is weakened, which increases the risk of disease and infection. Sleep plays a function in metabolism as well: even one night of interrupted sleep can cause a prediabetic state in someone who is otherwise healthy. “There are very crucial links between health and sleep,” Wu explains.
How much sleep is enough?
Many factors, including a person’s age, influence how much sleep they require. To me, this is more personal than it is general. However, below is a chart for guide.
But in all, don’t forget to listen to your body on this as each individual’s sleep needs do vary, and please whatever the reasons may be don’t attempt to go all night without sleep as this could make your body kaputski.
I once saw a video on military drills, which recommended at least four hours of night sleep else such an individual may be redundant the following day.
Perhaps, a medical expert,
may wish to throw more light on this to corroborate this story for believability.Alright, here’s the chat
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