Sleep, How Much is Enough
Think of the time-related guidelines you can recite by heart. Wait 30 minutes to go swimming after a meal. Arrive at the airport two hours before your flight. Visit your dentist every six months. Now ask yourself: “How many hours of sleep should I get?” If you’re not sure, you’re not alone. (The answer is not the same for everyone anyway.) Here’s how to know how much sleep you need.
Everyone has different sleep needs
Sleep needs change over your life span. When you’re young and growing, it’s normal to spend half of the day, if not more, sleeping. As you get older, you require less sleep each night for proper health and wellness.
While age is the primary factor in determining how much sleep you need, it’s not the only one.
Genetics influence your circadian rhythm and sleep patterns. There’s even a rare short-sleep gene mutation that allows individuals to sleep six hours or less each night without any ill effects.
Your physical and mental health impact how much sleep you need. For example, people suffering from anxiety or depression tend to spend less time in deep sleep stages, so they may need more time asleep to get proper rest.
Sleep needs can vary for different lifestyles. Athletes often need more sleep to recover from intense physical training.
Feel well rested?
Your ultimate goal is to find your Goldilocks sleep spot – that “just right” amount of quality, restful sleep that leaves you healthy, happy and ready to take on the world.
The first step in determining what that means for you is setting a bedtime that allows for the recommended number of sleep hours for your age bracket. (For adults under 60, we suggest starting with eight hours.) Stick to that routine for a week or two and be sure to practice good sleeping habits during that time. Then, track how you feel when you wake up and throughout the day.
Do you hit the snooze button and pull the covers over your head more than once every morning? Is it hard to focus and concentrate during the day? Do you constantly crave caffeine and junk food? Are you moody? Do you show physical signs of irritated eyes, acne or weight gain? All of these can be signs of sleep deprivation, meaning you’re not getting enough quality sleep.
Do you find yourself waking up before your alarm, raring to go? Do you feel refreshed with an energy level that lasts throughout the day? You may not need the full eight hours you’ve scheduled for sleep.
Adjust your sleep routine until you find the right sleep interval for you. It may also help to vary your bedtime. You may discover that hitting the sack at 10 p.m. instead of 11 p.m. and shifting your alarm to an hour earlier makes a big difference without adding additional shut-eye time.
Can you sleep too much?
Surprisingly, yes.
All of us need an extra hour or two of rest on occasion. In the short term, oversleeping can have the same negative side effects as getting too little sleep. But if you regularly need more than nine to 10 hours of sleep to feel rested, you may be suffering from other health problems, like diabetes, depression or sleep apnea. To better understand why you are oversleeping, talk to your doctor to see if you need a professional sleep assessment.
The Real Sleep Secret- Deep Sleep
By now, you’ve likely heard of many good habits that help aid in getting a restful sleep, like tossing your phone to the side and turning over (literally). Beyond adopting these good sleep habits, the simple truth remains that you sleep how you eat. What’s on your plate truly matters when it comes to setting yourself up for success in bed – getting deep, revitalizing rest. From your brain to your gut, picking out the right bedtime snack, nightcap, or even humidity in your bedroom, can help improve rest and optimize your health.
Deep sleep, also called slow-wave sleep, occurs in the third stage of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. During deep sleep, electrical activity in the brain appears in long, slow waves called delta waves. These waves have a frequency of 0.5 to 2 Hertz
Typically, you descend into deep sleep within an hour of falling asleep, and experience progressively shorter periods of deep sleep as the night wears on. During deep sleep, body functions like breathing and heart rate are also very slow and your muscles are relaxed. It can be difficult for someone to wake you up, and waking up out of deep sleep may make you feel mentally foggy for up to an hour.
Once you fall asleep, your body cycles through three non rapid eye movement (NREM) stages of sleep followed by one rapid eye movement (REM) stage. It usually takes between 90 and 120 minutes to cycle through all four stages, after which the cycle starts again. Adults typically have four to six cycles per night. In the first half of the night you spend more time in NREM sleep. However, as the night goes on, you spend more and more time in REM sleep.
Stage 1: This brief, drowsy stage marks the transition to sleep, when your breathing and heartbeat start to slow down.
Stage 2: In this stage of light sleep, your breathing and heart rate slow even more. Your temperature drops, and your muscles relax. Stage 2 sleep lasts longer in each cycle throughout the night. About half of your total sleep every night is spent in this stage.
Stage 3: Stage 3 sleep represents the deepest sleep of the sleep cycle, when brain waves are at their slowest in frequency and highest in amplitude.
REM: As the name suggests, your eyes move quickly beneath your eyelids during REM sleep. Your brain activity is similar to that of a person who is awake. However, your muscles usually do not move. Experts believe most of our dreaming happens during REM sleep.
Why Is Deep Sleep Important?
While all stages of sleep are necessary for good health, deep sleep offers specific physical and mental benefits. During deep sleep, your body releases growth hormone and works to build and repair muscles, bones, and tissue. Deep sleep also promotes immune system functioning. Additionally, slow-wave sleep may be important for regulating glucose metabolism.
Deep sleep is important for cognitive function and memory, and it is thought to play a role in language learning, motor skills, and the developing brain. Throughout the day, you receive information inputs that strengthen the synapses, or points of communication, in the networks of your brain. However, your brain cannot take on information continually without rest.
Researchers suggest that deep sleep plays a role in preparing your synapses for the next day. Put another way, your brain evaluates new memories and then preserves and consolidates only the ones that are most relevant to avoid saturating memory pathways. Although this theory is still under investigation, evidence shows that people obtain a higher proportion of deep sleep after learning a new task, and show higher concentrations of slow waves in brain areas related to the task.
Typically you descend into deep sleep within an hour of falling asleep, and experience progressively shorter periods of deep sleep as the night wears on. During this stage, automatic body functions like breathing and heart rate are also very slow and your muscles are relaxed. It can be difficult for someone to wake you up, and waking up out of deep sleep may make you feel mentally foggy for up to an hour.
Tips for Getting More Deep Sleep
Sleep on Your Left Side
People often ask, “What side is better to sleep on, the left or the right?” The best sleep position for most people is to sleep on their left side. While this may be news today, the wisdom originally comes from Ayurveda, India’s 5,000-year-old Science of Life. The left and right sides of the body are very different from one another. For example, the lymphatic system is more dominant on the left side of the body. This is because most of the body’s lymphatic fluid drains into the thoracic duct, which then goes into the left side of the heart, left jugular vein, and left subclavian vein. So, it makes sense that sleeping on the left side benefits the lymphatic drainage system. The lymphatic system is our first line of detox in the body, so it is the first to become congested when overworked.
Sleeping on the left side is also good for the heart. The largest artery in the body is the aorta. The aorta goes from the top of the heart, arches to the left, then goes down to the abdomen. When we sleep on our left side, it is easier for the heart to pump blood downhill into the descending aorta.
For better digestion and elimination, sleeping on the left side is the way to go. The large intestine is situated so it goes up the right side of the stomach area, then across so it can deposit waste into the colon going down the left side. Gravity is once again our ally when we sleep on the left side. After sleeping well, the descending colon is ready for an easy and complete elimination of waste in the morning.
Regular Exercise
Studies have found that proper exercise can alleviate sleep-related problems and help you get an adequate amount of rest. Recent research also suggests insufficient or poor-quality sleep can lead to lower levels of physical activity the following day.
For these reasons, experts today believe sleep and exercise have a bidirectional relationship. Optimizing your exercise routine can potentially help you sleep better, and getting an adequate amount of sleep may promote healthier physical activity levels during the day.
There are many benefits to exercising regularly plays a vital role in keeping the nation healthy. We accomplish this by setting national public health objectives and supporting programs, services, and education activities that improve the health of all including a lower risk of diseases like cancer and diabetes, improved physical function, and a higher quality of life. Exercising can also benefit certain groups. For example, pregnant people who engage in routine physical activity are less likely to gain an excessive amount of weight or experience postpartum depression, and older adults who exercise are at lower risk of being injured during a fall.
Exercising improves sleep for many people. Specifically, moderate to vigorous exercise can increase sleep quality for adults by reducing sleep onset – or the time it takes to fall asleep – and decrease the amount of time they lie awake in bed during the night. Additionally, physical activity can help alleviate daytime sleepiness and, for some people, reduce the need for sleep medications.
Exercise can also improve sleep in indirect ways. For instance, moderate to vigorous physical activity can decrease the risk of excessive weight gain, which in turn makes that person less likely to experience symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Roughly 60% of moderate to severe OSA cases have been attributed to obesity, though the relationship between weight and sleep apnea is complex.
Try getting out there and move that body.
Sleep with a Humidifier
A cool-air humidifier helps bring moisture into a room, which benefits us in many ways. When the air we breathe is too dry, lacking humidity, we can experience respiratory problems such as sinus inflammation, bronchitis, asthma or nosebleeds. Dry air can also make us become dehydrated more quickly. When the body gets dried out, it is more susceptible to bacterial infections. We may experience a dry throat and dry eyes. We may notice dry skin, chapped lips or eczema. On the other hand, when the humidity in a room is at 45-55%, we breathe more easily and sleep more soundly. A humidifier helps to re-moisturize air that has been dried out from weather, or from air conditioning and heating systems, resulting in refreshing sleep that lasts.
Another upside to using a humidifier is you’re much less likely to snore! When you breathe in humid air, rather than dry air, the throat and nasal cavity are less likely to get dried out. The air is free to move through these channels as you breathe, so the snoring sounds don’t occur. If it’s your partner who snores, and you’re the one who is awake because of it, then a humidifier will benefit both of you.
Most newer humidifiers run very quietly, giving just a small amount of white noise, which can be an added benefit to sleep. If you prefer to run a humidifier during the day, then it will likely moisturize the air enough to get you through the night with the humidifier off.
Another way to incorporate humidity into your room is to run a hot shower or bath and let the steam moisturize the room. While you’re at it, a steamy shower will also help open up and moisturize your sinuses.
Take a warm bath:
Heating your body at least an hour before bedtime may help induce slow-wave sleep. The warmth from the bath draws heat to your hands and feet which then dissipates. The process allows you to cool down to a comfortable temperature for sleeping.
Change your diet:
What you eat and drink before bedtime impacts your sleep. One small study found that people eating a diet high in saturated fats obtained less slow-wave sleep. People who ate more fiber were more likely to have more deep sleep.
Listen to binaural beats:
Binaural beats are created by listening to two slightly different tones, one in each ear. The difference between the frequencies of those tones creates a perceived third tone, or binaural beat. Limited research suggests that listening to delta wave binaural beats may help induce delta waves in the brain and therefore stage 3 sleep.
