“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
-Ernest Hemingway
Combining different sources, sleep is a condition of body and mind that typically recurs for several hours every night, wherein eyes are closed, nervous system is relatively inactive, muscles relaxed and consciousness is practically suspended.
According to me sleep is what keeps us functional. There have been many studies that show how lack of sleep affects mental state of an individual. For physical and mental well-being adults need 7-9 hours of sleep. But with change in lifestyle and increasing stress is leading to shorter sleep duration than required.
According to Matt Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, “back in 1940s people were sleeping on average just a little bit over eight hours a night and now in the modern age we’re down to around 6.7, 6.8 hours a night.”
Sleep affects every part of the body, from cells to heart to metabolism. Research shows that lack of sleep causes cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, depression, suicide ideation, Alzheimer’s and many other problems.
With change in time, we have better sleeping conditions, compared to before, then still why are we sleeping less than we should?
- Stress:- Small term but brings so many problems. Sometimes we are not stressing consciously but at the back of the mind, stress hides, keeping us awake. Worry keeps us awake, thinking about tomorrow’s work or something that happened today, keeps our brain busy. Any kind of stress keeps the body alert and sleep doesn’t get induced, as it should be.
What I do- When I am ready to go to sleep, I sit on the bed, closing eyes or softly gazing at an object and breathe deeply. I use guided meditation, as it stops unnecessary thoughts and relaxes my mind and body. There are many apps available to download. Or sometimes I take shower, which helps in relaxing body.
- Smartphones and other gadgets:- Smartphones in combination with social media sites is overpowering the natural circadian rhythms (sleep-awake cycle). The light emitting from screen of the phone exacerbates the balance of melatonin (sleep hormone) causing sleep disturbances. We need to put technology to sleep before we can fall asleep.
What I do- Turn off TV and laptop and start preparing my body for sleep. And finally before going sleep, turn off Internet on my phone so that phone doesn’t beep unnecessarily.
- Central heating and cooling system:- Sounds strange how this can affect sleep!? But if you think about it, we feel more sleepy when its cold compared to hot. Our ancestor lived in caves, so when the sun sets the temperature drops and with rise of sun, temperature goes up, so our genes have this memory and the body expects the ‘thermal lull’. But today, we are accustomed to live in set temperature throughout the day, which dislocates the flow of sleep-awake cycle.
What I do- Cannot turn off the heating of the house during winter months, but I close the air vents in our room, which makes the room colder. And in summer, I prefer keeping the windows open.
- Social Media:- Simpler was the time when there wasn’t social media. Calling people to talk with them or writing to communicate. But how does it affect sleep? The need of keep checking and refreshing the social media websites shifts our attention from the clock, which delays our bedtime.
What I do- I try not to go on social media half-an hour before the estimated time of sleep. It is very tempting and sometimes I end up being on one of them. But then after few minutes I force myself to close it.
- Late Dinner:- Sometimes workday extends till late and we get time to eat dinner late. Or sometimes we eat too much too late, which causes delay in sleep. When we eat late and then because we are tired we try sleeping but can’t sleep. Our brain is still working on digesting that food; our gut hormones work in association with the nervous system, which is also responsible for making us fall asleep. Sometimes we do fall asleep after eating when we are super tired, our body just shuts down but we don’t get the quality sleep.
What I do- I plan to eat at least two-three hours before bedtime. And sometimes if I get late for dinner, I prefer eating cereal with milk.
- Caffeine:- It is a stimulant, once consumed caffeine stays in our body for 12 hours. It not only delays the sleep but also makes it difficult to maintain the sleep. In morning, one cup of coffee would help us to be awake throughout the day, but excess of it causes health problems. Tea, coffee, cocoa, sodas, they all contain caffeine. Many suggests sticking to two o'clock cut-off time for caffeine.
What I do- Couple of years back, I was addicted to coffee that kept me awake till late night. But now I don’t drink coffee past afternoon unless I have work deadline.
True they say, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Getting enough sleep is very essential. Due to need of the hour, we don’t sleep enough during weekdays and ‘catch up’ on the missed hours of sleep during weekends, which is an unhealthy pattern. Our body works the best when there is homeostasis.