Introduction
On an average a human spends around 30% of his life in sleeping. But is sleep really important to us?? The short answer is - YES. It doesn't only refresh our mind and body, but also make it ready for next day. Moreover how much young you will look, how healthy you will be, how productive and creative you are, how strong your will power and relations will be, how much stress and depression you will feel, and chances of migraine and even cancer all depend upon sleep.
To our ancestors, sleep was a state at which body and mind shut off, but it is not true. Our body during sleep is at rest, but some parts of our mind is still active performing various tasks like re-energize the body cells, remove toxins from body, flush some waste memory and prepare you for next day.
So we now somewhat familiar with sleep and its benefits, now let discuss for how much time we should sleep??
Mandatory Sleep Hours
National Sleep Foundation in 2015, organised a team of 18 experts from 12 organisations to conduct a study to know about the duration of sleep for different age group people. As a result of it, experts were able to make 9 groups of different age people and recommended sleep duration for them which is as follows:-
| Age group | called as | Recommended sleep hours |
|---|---|---|
| 0-3 months | Newborns | 14-17 hours |
| 4-11 months | Infants | 12-15 hours |
| 1-2 year | Toddlers | 11-14 hours |
| 3-5 year | Preschoolers | 10-13 hours |
| 6-13 year | School aged children | 9-11 hours |
| 14-17 year | Teenagers | 8-10 hours |
| 18-25 year | Young adults | 7-9 hours |
| 26-64 year | Adults | 7-9 hours |
| > 65 year | Older adults | 7-8 hours |
The above table is only showing recommended sleep hours, but it has been seen that people belonging to same age group sometimes need different hours of sleep. For Example:- For a young adult, 6 hour sleep is enough while another young adult need about 10 hour of sleep. This is because of the reason that every person is different from each other.
There are many people who will take a long hours sleep, but even then they feel drowsy and dizziness next day. This may be because of the poor quality of sleep. We have fulfilled the quantity, but don't able to get a good quality sleep. And someone has said right "Quality is more important than Quantity".
Now it is clear that good quality of sleep matters a lot than quantity. But to which sleep we will call it quality sleep?? Lets find out...
What do you mean by sleep quality??
On the basis of quality of sleep, it is divided into two types- Good quality sleep and Bad quality sleep.
A Good quality sleep is that one in which a person fall asleep within 30 mins after going to bed, sleep soundly through the night with no more than one awakening. Good quality sleep makes you light, fill up you with endless energy and helps to make your next day productive.
On the other hand Bad quality sleep is that one in which person find hard to sleep, remain staring at ceiling, if somehow able to sleep, awake more than one time during night. Bad quality sleep will not only make your next day unproductive, but also increase the chances of diseases like cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart attack, insomnia, high blood pressure and many more.
Now we have an idea about quality of sleep, and will discuss that how we can get a quality sleep each night?? But before this let discuss how we fall asleep ?
How we fall asleep or factors promoting sleep..
Mainly this is inner clock of our body that is the factor of our sleep. Our brain knows about us and even about our sleep that is when to go to bed for a sleep. The inner clock of our body depends upon certain cues of environment like light, darkness, cold, hot etc. For example:- When we expose ourselves to light, our eyes catch the light signals, send them to brain and as an action it tells to inner clock of your body that it is daytime and hence inner clock keep you awake. But as evening started,the intensity and amount of light signals go on decreasing and as a result your brain tells to your inner clock that the time to go to bed is coming soon and as an action to it inner clock let you to feel drowsy and dizzy.
Moreover our body too releases many types of hormones which are known to cause sleep.</p.
For Example:- Adenosine(C10H13N5O4) is a hormone produces when Adenosine triphosphate in short "ATP"(also called as energy currency of body) decomposes to release energy. The quantity of adenosine increases gradually during day as more and more ATP decomposes to produce energy. Adenosine gives information to brain that ATP is consuming, as a result source of energy decreasing so body needs rest to make more and more ATP. AT night, the quantity of adenosine is maximum as almost all ATP get consumed, which makes you drowsy and dizzy to regain ATP. When you sleep, adenosine that was produced as a result of decomposition of energy currency, also decomposes and as a result its quantity decreases by day. This process continues and thus adenosine act as a sleep hormone.
There is another hormone called as Melatonin(C13H16N2O2) release by pineal gland famous with the name "hormone of darkness" as it produced as a response to darkness. This hormone is very sensitive to light and thus pineal gland is unable to produce it during daytime. With evening, quantity of Melatonin increases and is maximum at night before bed time and let you to feel drowsy and hence responsible for your sleep. Although how melatonin helps us to sleep, is not completely known to us yet.
Now we know much about quality of sleep, factors responsible for sleep and so lets discuss now that how we can increase or boost our sleep quality??
Boost your sleep quality with these simple tricks
A boosted sleep quality will not only give proper rest to your mind and body, but also let you to achieve sleep results in less time as expected. This is the reason behind the people who take less hours sleep to another but even then manage to make their next day great.
Below are some steps or tricks( whatever you call it) by following which you can too, yes you can, also increase or say boost your sleep quality.
1.Say goodbye to electronic friends( at least at night):-
Our electronic friends like mobile, tablet, laptop, T.V., LED's produce artificial light. When this artificial light falls on our eye, it gives indication to brain that it is daytime even at night, resulting in wrong function of our internal clock and also production of various sleep hormones like Melatonin and Adenosine decreases. As a result we find unable to sleep and thus sleep quality decreases. Moreover the artificial light contains blue light having wavelength 450-490nm, to which our eye is most sensitive. When blue light is received by our eyes, it affects the production of sleep hormones much more than any other light.Now what we can do to prevent from this??
In my opinion, the best solution is to say goodbye to our loving electronic friends . But wait, are we not living in age of technology and also after our day work, it is only evening and night when we have time to spent with our electronic collections. So what we can do ? The best answer is to use blue light filter software or applications available for all platforms. Such software act as a filter for blue light as names indicating and thus prevent the production of blue light or at least minimize it and hence save our eyes and precious sleep hormones. There are many such software available for all platforms, but i will recommend you to use F.lux ( for pc and laptop) and Twilight (mainly for android) as i am personally using them too.
2. Maintain right temperature :-
The temperature of our surrounding helps a lot in our sleeping. Researchers suggest that we should decrease our surroundings temperature for better sleep. This is because decrease in temperature gives an indication to inner clock about sleeping and moreover the production of sleep hormones also increases. The best optimal temperature for sleep is in between 15 - 20 degree celcius. You can achieve this one by taking bath just before bed, using electric devices like fans and AC or also can invest in cooling mattresses.
3. Calm your inner chatter:-
Do you find unable to sleep while on bed because you keep thinking about past bad experiences or busy in making virtual future in your thoughts, then you are not only one but also your this friend was victim of it. The inner mind thoughts during bed time doesn't let you to sleep by keeping you focus on thoughts instead of sleep. So what we can do to calm this inner chatter?? Well you can look for various sleep medicines, but i will recommend you to try meditation. The meditation will not only remove unwanted thoughts from your mind during sleep, but also let you to best yourself. You can find various meditation tutorial on YOU Tube, if you are unable to find one then [Headspace](https://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app) is the app to go with./
4. Avoid excessive use of caffeine:-
Caffeine is a chemical present in tea, coffee and in cold drinks too and is mainly responsible to cause alertness after consumed. Moreover caffeine stops the production of adenosine and thus affects your sleep a lot. The half- life period of caffeine is about 5-8 hours, means it affect our body for 5-8 hours maximum. So it is recommended to not consume any caffeine product before 8 hours from sleep. So try to get rid caffeine products or at least minimize the use to get a better sleep.
Conclusion:- From this post, we get an idea about quality and quantity of sleep . This post helps us to understand a little bit about quality of sleep and how we can increase it. Hopes you liked it.
References:-
- (https://www.sleepfoundation.org/press-release/national-sleep-foundation-recommends-new-sleep-times/page/0/1)
- (https://www.sleepfoundation.org/good-quality-sleep)
- (https://www.sleep.org/articles/sleep-quantity-different-sleep-quality/)
- (https://www.livescience.com/19462-fall-asleep.html)
- (https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-fall-asleep-1)
- (https://www.sleep.org/articles/ways-technology-affects-sleep/)
- (https://www.alaskasleep.com/blog/body-temperature-and-sleep-how-to-maintain-best-temperature-for-sleep)
- (http://www.sleepeducation.org/news/2013/08/01/sleep-and-caffeine)..