How to get a deep long sleep. Self-development - good sleep, creating a strong nervous system. how to outsmart insomnia

Sleep is an important part of our life. During sleep, our body grows, regenerates tissues, recovers, that is, primary actions are performed. In this article, we'll talk about how to achieve sound and healthy sleep.

1. Don't try to control your sleep. Sleep is one of the things in your life that you cannot control. You won't be able to tell yourself to go to sleep, sleep as much as you want, wake up. No person has the ability to control their sleep.

2. Determine the exact time to sleep. This is just as important as setting the exact time for your morning awakening. Of course, there is no need to set an alarm clock for the evening, you just need to choose the exact time and go to bed at the chosen time. Any organism needs a fixed rest. If you go to bed at the same time, then after a certain time, make sure that it has become easier to fall asleep, and after waking up you feel cheerful and fresh. After all, it should be so, in the morning vigor and freshness.

3. Take a shower or bath before going to bed, so you will learn how to achieve a sound and healthy sleep. As it turned out, when your body temperature rises, you get sleepy. A shower or hot bath has the same properties as sleeping pills. Lie in the bath and let your body relax and get ready for bed. Then go to bed and enjoy a healthy and sound sleep.

4. Eliminate glare. Light, even if it is very weak, can disturb your restful sleep. That is why it is advised to turn off the computer, TV and even the light in the hallway before going to bed. Although many people say: "I'm used to falling asleep like that." However, light prevents the body from resting peacefully and therefore you harm the body and plant your immunity.

5. Extraneous noise must be turned off. The principle is the same as with light. Noise can spoil your healthy sleep, even if the noise is minor. The sounds that are emitted at low frequencies, although barely audible, are very harmful, as they strain the brain. It is better to sleep to the sound of a fan, as it emits "white noise", masking unpleasant sound signals from the outside world.

6. Keep your bedroom cool. Fresh air is the companion to how to achieve sound and healthy sleep. And therefore, it is worth lowering the air temperature in the room where you will rest, because in a cool room, all the processes occurring in the body during sleep are carried out more calmly. The blood is saturated with oxygen, due to the coolness, thereby giving the body a full rest and rejuvenation.
7. Eat light food for dinner. Eating heavy meals at dinner can trigger digestive problems. In addition, frequent urination at night. You need to have dinner at least two hours before bedtime. The most optimal dinner will be light snacks. This will give you deeper and more restful sleep.
8. Do not drink alcohol or smoke before bed. Of course, sometimes you can allow a drink and a smoke before going to bed at a family celebration or other event, but you shouldn't make it a habit. Nicotine and alcohol are stimulants, they will prevent you from falling asleep normally, and they will also disturb your sleep, and you will not be able to achieve a sound and healthy sleep.

9. Choose a suitable pillow. A pillow can be compared to a bra - it should fit you perfectly. After all, if there is even the slightest discomfort, you will not be able to sleep peacefully. Your pillow should be comfortable and fully adaptable to the position in which you usually sleep. It is best if the pillow is made from natural materials.

10. Remove the animals from the bedroom. No matter how adorable and adorable pets are, they are not the best companions before going to bed, they scratch at the doors, sharpen their claws, meow, whine, bark, often wake up at night, thereby disrupting your restful sleep. Therefore, when going to bed, make sure they are not in the bedroom.

11. Eliminate the pain. You shouldn't endure even minor pain, so eliminate it. This is the only way you can sleep peacefully and sleep soundly until the morning.

12. Avoid coffee before bed. You should not drink coffee at night, it is better to drink it in the morning. Since this drink contains caffeine, it is a stimulant, increasing blood pressure in a few minutes. Therefore, you will have to forget about healthy sound sleep.

13. Just breathe deeply. Do not think about tomorrow's affairs, instead focus on your breathing. You can breathe slowly and deeply, or shallowly and quickly, the main thing is to breathe rhythmically. Such breathing like a lullaby helps to fall asleep faster and wake up refreshed and vigorous.

14. Remain calm. Don't panic if you have insomnia. Panic will only make you feel worse, so give yourself a break. Even if you have not been able to sleep, relax and think only about the good. Read your favorite book, or listen to relaxing music. Another way to combat insomnia is to have sex.

15. Don't try to make up for a sleepless night. Such compensation simply does not exist. The only thing you can do. Get back to the right rhythm. Forcing yourself to go to bed during the day will be superfluous. Just going to bed earlier is unlikely to help either. These actions give your body mixed signals. Therefore, it is better to find the best sleep pattern for yourself, and fit your lifestyle. Just do not need to constantly think about how to achieve this, because a healthy and sound sleep will come by itself. Just try to eliminate the likelihood of insomnia, do all of the above.

● how many hours do you need to sleep

If you are struggling with trying to solve all the problems of the day that stand in your way, shortening your sleep time may be the only solution. Indeed, how can you afford such a "luxury" when there is a lot of things to do? And the truth is, by cutting back on sleep, you don't hurt yourself. Even a little sleep deprivation has a strong effect on your mood, energy and stress resistance. Understanding the importance of sleeping at night and how to avoid chronic sleep deprivation can help you develop healthy sleep.

The power of sleep

How to sleep properly

Insomnia reasons and remedies

Many of us try to spend as little time as possible sleeping. After all, there is so much time to do that it seems more interesting and more important to devote time to necessary activities than to spend “extra” hours on sleep. But just like exercise and nutrition, sleep is important to our health and well-being. Sleep quality is directly reflected in the quality of life while awake, including mental activity, productivity, emotional balance, creativity, physical activity, and even weight. Nothing in this situation can replace your sleep!

Understanding the importance of sleep

Sleep is not only a time when a person's body and brain are turned off. During sleep, the brain continues to work, controlling biological processes in the body, as if preparing a person for the next day. If not pay enough time for restorative sleep, then you will not be able to work, study, create, communicate at the proper level. Regularly saving on sleep time can lead to mental and physical disruptions.

The good news is that you no need to choose between health and performance... Once you receive, your vitality and efficiency will increase. In fact, you will most likely find that you get more done during the day compared to the days when you did not get enough sleep.

Myths and facts about sleep

Myth 1: Sleeping an hour less at night will not affect your work during the day. You may not be “nodding off” during the day, but reducing your night's sleep by 1 hour can affect your ability to think clearly and react quickly. Your cardiovascular health, energy balance, and immune system also depend on adequate sleep.

Myth 2: Your body quickly adapts to changing sleep patterns. Most people can “move” the hands of their biological clock, but even in this situation, the safest interval is no more than 1-2 hours a day. Thus, it may take a week or more to adapt to multiple time zones or night shifts.

Myth 3: An extra hour of sleep can help deal with the problem of fatigue that plagues you during the day. It is not only how much you sleep that matters, but how you sleep. Some people sleep 8-9 hours, but they cannot tell when to wake up, that they feel well rested because the quality of sleep was not the best.

Myth 4: Lack of sleep can be made up on weekends. Despite the fact that this mode allows you to get enough sleep at least on weekends, it still does not solve the problem of lack of sleep. Moreover, putting off the urge to get enough sleep can affect your sleep-wake cycle in such a way that it will be difficult for you to fall asleep at the right time on Sunday to wake up alert and well-slept on Monday morning.

Excerpt from the manual healthy sleep National Institutes of Health (USA)

How many hours do you need to sleep?

According to the National Institutes of Health, the average adult sleeps less than seven hours a day... Today, in a dynamic society, 6 or 7 hours of sleep can be considered good rest. But in fact, this is the path to chronic lack of sleep.

There is a big difference between the amount of sleep you can “get” and the amount of sleep you need for optimal performance. Just because you're doing a great job, even if you only sleep seven hours, doesn't mean you won't be able to improve your performance, and you won't get more done by increasing your sleep by an hour or two.

Despite the fact that each person's sleep needs are different (some sleep a little, some sleep a lot), most healthy adults need to sleep 7.5-9 hours a day to maintain their best health. Children and adolescents should sleep more (see table above). And despite the prevailing opinion that a person sleeps less with age, older people need to sleep at least 7.5-8 hours a day. Since older people have difficulty sleeping at night, it is possible to make up for the lack of sleep during the day.

The best way to find out how much time you actually sleep matches your daily requirement for your age is to assess how you feel during your daytime wakefulness. If you sleep enough hours, you will feel energized and alert all day, from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.

Sleep needs and peak performance

Do you think six hours of sleep is enough for you?

Think again. Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have found that some people have a gene that promotes high performance even when a person sleeps 6 hours a night. However, this gene is very rare, in less than 3% of people. For the remaining 97% of people, sleep takes longer.

Signs and symptoms of lack of sleep

If you sleep less than eight hours each night, you are most likely experiencing a lack of sleep. Moreover, you may not even know how much sleep you are deprived of.

How is this possible: to lack sleep and not know about it? Most of the signs are invisible. In addition, if you have got into the habit of “saving” on sleep, then you may not even remember the state when you were a slept, vigorous, full of energy person. It may be okay to fall asleep in a boring meeting, struggle with an afternoon nap, or take a nap after dinner, but the truth is, all of these signs indicate that you are not getting enough sleep.

You don't sleep much if ...

You need an alarm to wake up on time

Rely on the alarm reset button

You have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

Feeling sluggish after lunch

Fall asleep in meetings, lectures, or in a cozy, warm room

You become drowsy after eating a heavy meal or while driving

You need to take a little nap during the day to replenish your strength.

You fall asleep in front of the TV, or while relaxing in the evening

You need to sleep off this weekend

Fall asleep five minutes after going to bed

The consequences of lack of sleep and chronic sleep deprivation

Despite the fact that it would seem that lack of sleep is not such a significant problem, it can lead to a number of negative consequences... Lack of sleep can affect your judgment, coordination, and reaction time. In fact, lack of sleep can affect the same way as alcohol.

The consequences can be as follows:

fatigue, apathy, and lack of motivation

mood swings and irritability

reduced ability for creativity and problem solving

inability to cope with stress

decreased immunity; frequent cases of colds and infectious diseases

problems with concentration and memory

overweight

slowed down motor skills, increased risk of accidents

difficulty making decisions

the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as other health problems

How lack of sleep affects your weight

Have you ever noticed that when you don't sleep much, you eat more sweets to replenish your energy reserves? Everything is easy to explain. Lack of sleep directly affects overeating and weight gain.

There are two hormones in our body that regulate the natural feeling of hunger and satiety. Ghrelin stimulates a sense of appetite, while leptin sends signals to the brain at the moment of satiety. However, when you don't spend enough hours in bed, your ghrelin levels rise, stimulating your appetite so that you want to eat more than usual, and your leptin levels decrease, which means you feel full later than usual. Therefore, the less you sleep, the more you will be hungry.

Sleep phases: REM and NREM sleep

The entire sleep period is divided into several stages (phases). The entire dream is represented by a series of repetitive stages, which are very different from each other in content. All phases from slow wave sleep to dreaming are very important for the brain. Each stage of sleep plays a role in preparing the human body for the next day.

There are two main phases of sleep:

Slow sleep (without eye movement) includes four stages of sleep, each stage deeper than the last.

Rapid (rapid eye movement) sleep is the period of the most active dreams. During this stage of sleep, your eyes actually move back and forth, hence the name.

Sleep stages

Stage of slow sleep

Stage # 1 (falling asleep) - This stage lasts about five minutes. The eyes move slowly under the eyelids, the muscles relax, you can be easily woken up.

Stage # 2 (light sleep) is the first stage of actual sleep, which lasts 10 to 25 minutes. Eye movement stops, heart rate slows, body temperature drops.

Stage 3 (Deep sleep) - it is difficult to wake you up, and after you are awakened, you will not immediately begin to adequately assess reality, experiencing a state of twilight consciousness - this lasts for several minutes. In the deepest stage of sleep, the brain waves are very slow. There comes an outflow of blood from the brain to the muscles, physical energy is restored.

REM sleep stages

REM sleep (dreaming stage) - 70-90 minutes after you fall asleep, your body enters the REM sleep stage, at which time dreams occur. Your eyes move quickly, your breathing becomes shallow, and your heart rate and blood pressure rise. Also during this stage of sleep, the arm and muscles can become numb.

Understanding sleep cycles

Sleep quality and your internal clock

Your internal sleep-wake clock, otherwise known as your biological clock or circadian rhythm, is regulated by the processes in your brain that are responsible for the duration of your waking state and changing the light and dark parts of the day. At night, your body, responding to changes in the amount of light, produces melatonin, sleep hormone. During the day, light signals in the brain are triggered, which stop the production of melatonin, so that a person is awake.

Your internal clock can be frustrated by factors such as working the night shift, flying to other time zones, or having an irregular sleep pattern - which makes you dim, disorienting when you want to sleep at the wrong time. Melatonin can also stop being produced if you are deprived of sunlight during the day, or are often exposed to artificial light at night - especially light from electronic devices such as a TV, computer, tablet, or mobile phone.

Sleep structure

You may be thinking that if you go to bed, then a deep sleep soon sets in, which lasts most of the sleep, turning into a light sleep in the morning when it is time to wake up. In fact, the sleep cycle is much more complex.

If you plot the sleep stages during the night, the result will be similar to the skyscrapers of a city - which is why this diagram is called sleep architecture.

At night, your sleep follows a certain pattern: deep restorative sleep stages alternate with dreaming and light sleep stages. Together, REM and NREM sleep form a single sleep cycle. Each cycle usually lasts about 90 minutes and is repeated 4-6 times per night.

The amount of time for each stage of sleep varies throughout the night. For example, most deep sleep occurs in the first half of the night. This is followed by REM sleep, which lasts longer, alternating with light Stage 2 sleep. This is why it is easy to wake you up at midnight, perhaps also early in the morning, but very difficult when you just fell asleep.

Having trouble getting up on an alarm clock?

Even if you've slept through the night, getting up in the morning can be very difficult if you are in deep sleep (stage # 3). If you want your morning to be less “heavy”, or if you know you have a tight sleep schedule, try setting your alarm to a multiple of 90 minutes, the length of your average sleep cycle. For example, if you go to bed at 10pm, set your alarm to 5:30 am (total sleep time 7 ½ hours) instead of 6:00 or 6:30. You may even feel better waking up at 5:30 than sleeping for another 30-60 minutes, because you wake up at the end of your sleep cycle, when your body and brain are already close to waking up.

The importance of deep and REM sleep

It is not the number of hours you spent in bed that matters - the quality of your sleep is important. If you spend a lot of time sleeping, but you still struggle to wake up in the morning, or do not feel energized during the day, you may not spend enough time in various stages of sleep.

Each sleep phase in the sleep cycle has its own benefits for the sleeper. However, deep sleep (stages 3 and 4) and REM sleep are considered particularly important. On average, an adult spends approximately 50% of the total sleep stage 2, 20% in REM sleep, and 30% in the rest of the period, including deep sleep.

Deep sleep

The biggest impact on sleep quality is a lack of deep sleep. Deep sleep is the time when the body recovers and stores energy for the next day. It plays a major role in maintaining the health of the body by stimulating growth and development, muscle and tissue repair, and strengthening the body's immune system. To wake up refreshed and refreshed, the quality of sleep should be prioritized. Factors that lead to poor quality deep sleep include:

Getting up in the middle of the night from noise, for example, or from the sound of a crying baby.

Night shift work. Achieving a good deep sleep during the day is difficult because of the light and noise.

Smoking or drinking alcohol in the evening. Substances such as alcohol and nicotine have a negative effect on the long sleep stage. It is best to limit their effects on the body before bed.

REM sleep

Thanks to deep sleep, the body is renewed, thanks to REM sleep, the brain is renewed, playing an important role in learning and memorization. During REM sleep, the brain consolidates and processes information received during the day, forms neural connections that enhance memory, and compensates for its supply of neurotransmitters, including substances "good mood": serotonin and dopaminethat have a beneficial effect on well-being throughout the day.

For more REM sleep that stimulates the brain and mood, try sleeping 30-60 minutes more in the morning when REM sleep increases. By creating a comfortable sleep environment in general, you will also increase the quality of REM sleep. If you do not get enough deep sleep, then your body will try to “catch up” this primarily through REM sleep.

Fighting sleep deprivation

Lack of sleep is the difference between the amount of sleep you need and the hours you actually get. Every time you "save" on sleep, you increase sleep deprivation. Ultimately, sleep deprivation will need to be restored; it doesn't just go away. If you have lost an hour of sleep, you need to increase your next sleep by an hour to rebalance the balance of sleep and wakefulness.

It's not enough to get enough sleep on the weekend alone!

Many of us try to get rid of our lack of sleep on weekends, but experience shows that recovering from chronic lack of sleep is a difficult process. One or two nights good night - insufficient to get rid of a long period of sleep deprivation. While extra sleep can give you a temporary boost (for example, you feel great on a Monday morning after the weekend), your productivity and energy decline towards the end of the day.

Tips for avoiding sleep deprivation

Although you can't get rid of a lack of sleep at night or even on weekends, with a little effort and planning, you can get everything back to its original state.

Aim to get at least seven and a half hours of sleep every night. Take care not to increase sleep deprivation by taking less time to sleep than you should. Consistency is strength.

If you don't get enough sleep, add another hour to recover. If you haven't slept for 10 hours in total, then you should add another 1-2 hours to this amount.

Keep a dream journal. Write down when you went to bed, when you got up in the morning, the total duration of your sleep, how you felt during the day. Once you start recording how much you sleep, you can set your sleep pattern and quantitative need (how many hours you need to sleep).

Take "vacation" to get a good night's sleep. Take a two week period when you have a flexible schedule. Go to bed at the same time every day and allow yourself to sleep until you wake up yourself (no alarm). If you keep going to bed at the same time and waking up without an alarm, you can eventually end sleep deprivation by arriving at a sleep and rest routine that is perfect for you.

Remember that sleep is an important part of your life... Just as you plan your work and other important things, in the same way you should plan your sleep. Instead of “saving” on sleep, in order to catch up on what you didn't manage to accomplish in a day, put sleep above the rest of your daily activities.