With Michigan State
So, what should you know about sleep?
Kimberly Fenn is a professor in the department of psychology in the College of Social Sciences at Michigan State University.
Here, he breaks down common misconceptions about sleep and shares the steps we can take to succeed better quality sleep:
Q: What is REM and is it the deepest stage of sleep?
A: Rapid eye movement, or REM, is the phase of sleep characterized by 90-minute cycles that is often assumed to be the deepest stage of sleep, but is not. It is certainly the most familiar state of sleep, probably because it is the stage in which we mostly dream. It’s the stage where you have these wild, emotional, weird dreams that jump out of random events or weird scenarios. They can be very emotional, very visual in nature. Thus, it is the most famous stage of sleep, but it is also the one that was most recently discovered in 1953.
When talking about sleep stages, the word deep means that neural activity is at its slowest. If we look at an EEG of the brain in REM sleep, it is indistinguishable from being awake to the untrained eye. Your brain in REM sleep is essentially as active as it is when you are awake. Interestingly, although your brain is very active, your body is completely paralyzed. Your eyes can move and your smaller muscle groups can contract, but the larger muscle groups are in a state of lassitude or paralysis, which prevents you from realizing your dreams.
If you look at an EEG and see big, high-amplitude, slow waves, that’s what we’d consider a deeper stage of sleep. The deepest stage of sleep is called NREM Stage 3 which is called slow wave sleep. In this stage, your breathing and heart rate slow down and your whole body relaxes.
Your body prioritizes slow-wave sleep early in the night. It’s like when you’re hungry, you crave protein or carbs—food that’s more nutritious than starting with dessert. Sleep is the same way. The longer you are awake, the more you create the need for sleep. The sleep that is most critical is the deeper stages of sleep. So in the early evening, your sleep is dominated by slow wave activity. For an eight-hour sleep window, the first three to four hours are largely dominated by this deeper stage, and then REM sleep dominates the hours before waking.
Q: What does research suggest about alcohol’s effect on sleep?
A: In a way, alcohol is a sleep aid – it can help you fall asleep. Adenosine is a chemical in your cells that promotes sleep. Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist that blocks the action of adenosine, which is why many of us drink coffee in the morning. But alcohol is the opposite. It mainly affects the GABA system, but it also increases adenosine levels in the brain, which makes you more sleepy. It also gives you stronger slow-wave sleep early in the evening, so you sleep better to begin with.
The problem occurs later in the evening. Alcohol suppresses melatonin production and suppresses REM sleep. So when your body normally tries to go into REM, it can’t and instead you wake up more often. After a heavy night of drinking, there is much more fragmented sleep with more frequent awakenings. People consistently report less restorative sleep. Alcohol can also increase snoring during the night and increase the frequency and severity of sleep apnea.
So you end up with a trade-off: You may fall asleep faster, but you have much more disturbed sleep.
Q: Why might someone still feel tired after eight hours of sleep?
A: We usually think that if you’ve slept eight hours, you’ve done the work you’re sleeping on. But not all sleep is the same. If you sleep in a sub-optimal environment, such as it’s too loud or too hot, your body isn’t going to get restorative sleep. It can hover in these lighter stages if you wake up repeatedly due to environmental factors.
The other thing is that many people have undiagnosed sleep disorders. People usually know if they have insomnia because you’re awake, but obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, is different. Many Americans have it and don’t know it. A recent report estimates that 80% of OSA cases go undiagnosed. Patients with undiagnosed OSA report being in bed for eight hours, but may still be sleepy during the day.
With obstructive sleep apnea, your airway closes. This is most likely to affect slow wave sleep because it is the deepest stage when your muscles are most relaxed. The tissues in our throat relax and this closes the airway. So, most of the time, without realizing it, people with obstructive sleep apnea stop breathing hundreds of times a night just for a fraction of a second. This usually results in a greater proportion of lighter stages of sleep. They end up drifting in stage two sleep because every time their body relaxes and starts to enter slow wave sleep, they stop breathing and start again. This has profound effects on their daily lives. They will feel excessively tired during the day, and the decrease in oxygen during the night and frequent awakenings also have serious cardiovascular consequences.
It’s important to know that even if you’ve slept for eight hours, it doesn’t mean you’re getting quality sleep. If you often feel excessively sleepy during the day even after a full night in bed, something is happening while you sleep that is disrupting its quality.
Q: What are practical steps for people to improve their sleep?
A: There is no substitute for good sleep. You can skip sleep and drink a bunch of Red Bull, but you’re not going to either. You’re going to crash at some point. Sleep is so important to your well-being that it’s worth taking steps to improve your sleep.
The first step is to assess your sleep environment. Comfort is important for sleep. People will spend $80,000 on a car, but only $100 on a mattress they spend eight hours on every night. There are a lot of bad mattresses out there. Some mattresses are very firm, so your arm falls asleep if you sleep on your side. Others are too soft, which can lead to muscle pain in various parts of the body. Ambient temperature and noise also matter. These things make a difference in how deep, restorative sleep you get.
The second step is to prioritize your sleep. We are a highly motivated society. People work multiple jobs. Students often balance study and work. The end of the day is often the only free time you have, so it’s so easy to stay up too late. One thing that can help is to set an alarm for your bedtime, not just your wake-up time. Set this as a reminder that this is when you start your bedtime routine. It’s hard to do, but it makes a real difference the next day.
Finally, the third step is to see your doctor if you’re constantly waking up refreshed or sleepy during the day despite getting enough time in bed. Something may be disrupting your sleep that you can’t feel or fix on your own.
Source: Michigan State University
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Previously Posted at future.org with Creative Commons license
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The post How can you sleep better? first appeared on The Good Men Project.
