Get Your Sleeping Right!
When you get given a place in a rostered, weekly learning session what topic do you choose?
It has to be a topic of interest and benefit to all your colleagues plus it is a topic of your choice!
I decided that I was going to give my 15 minute speech on something I'm passionate about...Sleep!
I think we all know what sleep is?
Just in case…:
As per Google's dictionary, sleep is a condition of body and mind which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended.
I think most of us have felt that we feel like more at times?
From what I have found out it is really a science and you maybe able to get it right and feel a lot better.
I think we could all agree that since it occupies approx. 1 third of our lives it would be a good topic to look into a little further…can we go without more, is it really needed, can I spend more time in action rather than horizontal!
If I can feel more enthused in the morning why not!
Sleep influences creativity and innovation
Lack of sleep affects the prefrontal cortex of the brain – the area responsible for innovation, creativity, and self-control. A 1999 study found that going 24 hours without sleep noticeably impairs our ability to think flexibly or make updates to plans in light of new information. So it’s not just the quantity of tasks we get through each day that sleep influences, it’s the quality. For example, if we have it timed wrong and have the alarm clock set for waking up in what may be deep sleep I may feel the effects for the whole day
Before the 1950's, as mentioned on Sleep.org, scientists used to believe that as people drifted off to sleep, their brains and bodies would go into “shutdown” mode, entering a passive state that allowed them to recover from the previous day. What researchers have since learned: Sleep is a whole lot more complicated, and it’s a much more active state than you might think. In fact, while you're getting your zzz's, your brain goes through various patterns of activity.
Sleep is predictable cycle that includes two distinct parts – NREM, or Non-REM sleep, plus a REM or “Rapid Eye Movement” cycle.
During sleep, you usually go through five stages of sleep. Simplified, stages 1-2 are light sleep, 3-4 deep sleep, and the fifth stage is REM sleep, also referred to as rapid eye movement sleep. The dream state.
The first is light sleep and in this stage, you drift in and out of sleep. Your eyes move slowly, your muscle activity is slow, and you would be easy to wake up.
In the second stage, your body starts preparing for deep sleep. Eye movements and brain waves slow down, your body temperature drops, and your heart rate slows down.
Entering the third stage, you are now in deep sleep. Extremely slow brain waves called delta waves are intermixed with smaller, faster brain waves.
In stage four, you stay in deep sleep and your brain almost exclusively produces the slow delta waves, guiding you towards the fifth stage.
Entering the last stage, stage five, also called REM sleep. Now your eyes are closed but move rapidly from side-to-side, due to the intense dream and brain activity you go through in this stage.
There are two specific kinds of mornings.
Some of them involve you coming to a sudden start from a deep slumber as soon as the alarm goes off loudly. In those situations, you groggily get ready for the day, wishing you could go back to bed. And then there are other mornings when you naturally wake up a few minutes before your alarm goes off. On those mornings, you start the day feeling well-rested and alert—the complete opposite of the first kind of morning.
Waking up easy is all about timing. Waking up during light sleep feels like waking up naturally rested without an alarm clock.
Sleep deprivation is a major public health concern in many countries. One example everyone knows about: accidents caused by sleepy drivers.
It turns out that sleepy driving is a concern that plagues about 60% of adult drivers as 168 million Americans have driven a vehicle while feeling drowsy in the past year alone. Alarmingly, 37% of adult drivers, or 103 million people, have actually fallen asleep at the wheel before. 13% of those who have actually fallen asleep at the wheel have done so at least once a month. 11 million drivers admit that their sleepiness have caused an accident or near accident. 100,000 police-reported crashes are the result of driver sleepiness every year, according to the National Highway Safety Administration, and that is severely under-reported since it is currently very hard to assess sleepiness as the cause of a crash. Drowsy driving is as dangerous as alcohol intake. Yet there is no objective measure of sleepiness while driving!
Problems caused by Sleep Deprivation
Researchers, as Sleeprate.com mentions, have illustrated the need for consistent, quality sleep with a simple experiment that shows the impact of sleep debt. When healthy people are forced to stay awake continuously for one or two days, their waking state is eventually interrupted by short episodes of involuntary sleep. Test subjects are incapable of avoiding them. Moreover, other adverse consequences can be observed at the same time:
- declining cognitive performance
- poor memory consolidation
- impaired attention and decision-making
- slow reaction time
The slow reaction time can be one of the most dangerous effects, as it is not only the cause of many car accidents but also some of the biggest disasters in history, like the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and The Challenger.
5 Tips On Getting A Good Night’s Sleep:
If you’ve been having trouble getting enough good sleep, the good news is there are many ways you can improve your sleep habits. Try these tips:
- Get a routine and stick to it. Try going to bed around the same time every night and getting up at the same time each morning. You will wake up rearing to go!
- Sleep is as bad as drinking if you get it wrong!
- 6 – 8 hours is widely recognised as an adult's required sleep.
- As mentioned above, sleep is made up of 5 stages. 1 group of 5 stages is approx. 90 minutes. Your sleep per night is several of these 90 minutes.
- Don’t wake up in deep sleep. Waking up during light sleep is best.