Something you're probably doing that's just as bad as smoking

I strike when you lie,

I am death’s gentle friend

I trouble you when

I am not there

I soothe you when I am there

Who am I?

If you haven’t already guessed it, the answer is sleep, one of the most elusive body functions. We are among the millions of texters, gamers, and midnight emailers, who are making poor decisions regarding our sleep. Maybe understanding how sleep actually works and what influences our sleep can help us change our attitude and empower us to make healthy decisions. 

Between sleep and wakefulness, we might find great inspiration and insight 

Sleep often feels like a curtain of unconsciousness is swung across the stage, making it impossible to see—or remember—what happens. Some folklore talks of Sandman sprinkling sand into your eyes and making you slip into dreamland. Some say a butterfly visits to help you drift off, while the ancient Greeks believed in Hypnos, the god of sleep. 

In reality, science has found that humans have a sleep switch that makes us fall asleep. Sleep researcher Clifford B. Saper identified a cluster of neurons, termed the sleep switch, located in the hypothalamus, which triggers sleep onset. 

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the energy currency of cells. As we expend energy, ATP is broken down throughout the day, and adenosine is released as a byproduct. The accumulation of adenosine throughout the day leads us to feel progressively sleepy. In other words, the more energy we use at a cellular level, the more likely we are inclined to sleep. Along with other sleep-promoting factors, a system-wide state shift we call sleep takes over. Sleep likely clears the adenosine accumulation while other chemicals slowly accumulate until we cannot help but wake up and stay awake. 

As we veer toward sleep, we travel through a transitional state called hypnagogia. Its parallel transitional state when we wake up is called hypnopompia. Most of the time, the move from being awake to being asleep is so fast that we miss these altogether. But here is an interesting finding—the surreal trance-like state before sleep has been recognized as a place of insight, inspiration, and telepathy. Revolutionaries, in fact, used it to do better work in their fields. Thomas Edison used the hypnagogic states to get ideas for new inventions. He would take short naps while holding steel balls in his hands. As he drifted off, his hands would relax, and the balls would fall and wake him up—sometimes with a new approach to an old problem.

What happens when we sleep? 

Did you know that until the middle of the twentieth century, most scientists believed the brain turns off when we fall asleep, only to turn back on upon waking? Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of brain activity demonstrated that sleep is a remarkably active time. 

Sleep is not a single, unvarying state of consciousness. It is a fluctuating state consisting of 4 stages.

The two main forms are rapid eye movement (REM) and slow-wave (SW) – which alternate around five to six times a night, on average every 90 minutes. 

REM sleep is the most active stage of sleep. REM is so active that it literally heats up the brain, requiring other stages of sleep to cool it down. When we enter REM sleep, the prefrontal cortex, which enables us to maintain self-awareness and organize experience, goes offline. We are immersed in the internally generated worlds of our dreams unconstrained by external reality. Dreams that occur during REM sleep tend to be the most frequent and vivid. 

Slow-wave sleep (SW) is a deep sleep typified by slow, high-amplitude, synchronized brain waves. It is our most restorative form of sleep, regenerating tissues, building bones and muscles, and strengthening immunity. It also burns fat and maintains cardiovascular health, which explains why sleep deprivation contributes to the development of obesity and heart problems. While immersed in it, our dreams are fragmented and vague.

Here is a fascinating finding. As we age, the amount of SW sleep we get decreases dramatically. While SW sleep constitutes nearly 20 percent of our nightly slumber in young adulthood, it is only 3 percent by midlife.

The impact of sleep on students’ learning, and memory

Although there are some open questions about the role of sleep in forming and storing memories, the general consensus is that a good night's sleep is optimal for learning and memory. Memory consolidation, the process of preserving key memories and discarding excessive information, takes place during sleep. 

When you are asleep, the sleep stages prepare your brain to learn new information the following day. Not sleeping or getting enough sleep can lower one's learning abilities by as much as 40%. The brain also sorts through your memories, filtering out the important ones and eliminating other information. These selected memories will become more concrete as slow-wave sleep begins and continues during REM sleep. In this way, short-term memory transitions into long-term memory. Emotional memories are also processed in the REM stage, which can help you cope with difficult experiences.

Dreams themselves might have a greater significance to our health. Some experts even believe that it’s actually a lack of REM sleep and a lack of dreaming — rather than just poor sleep in general — that’s responsible for many of the health problems. 

Rather than dreams just being a product of random neurons firing during sleep, researchers believe there is something more. Vastly our dreams consist of threatening situations (encountering snakes or spiders; being lost, chased, or naked; and teeth falling out) or reimagining the past. Sleep researchers Patrick McNamara believe that they prepare us for future challenges and may help us undo, or redo, past ones.

 “We humans do most of our everyday learning,” McNamara added, “via these sorts of counterfactual simulations.”

However, insomnia is more prevalent and problematic than ever

Some conditions that hamper sleep for so many in the twenty-first century are bulging workloads, shifting schedules, and other work-related stresses. Extending light into our night times also exacerbates the problem. When the light receptors in our eyes sense the onset of darkness, melatonin is released, inducing sleepiness. Artificial light, especially blue light from phones that we squint at as we lie in bed, impedes the release of melatonin and makes it harder to fall and stay asleep. 

So what happens when you don't get sufficient sleep? 

Your performance suffers, your immunity is compromised, and your stress hormones creep up. Your ability to learn, evaluate situations and respond to stimuli are also diminished. Even more worryingly, studies have found that a week of sleeping only four to five hours a night amounts to a cognitive impairment equivalent to a blood alcohol level of one percent. Kat Duff, the author of the book 'The Secret Life of Sleep,' stresses the importance of making our children understand the importance of sleep and helping them make better lifestyle choices. 

"They drag themselves through their days like walking zombies, often too sleepy to pay attention at school and too irritable to get along with others. Grades dip, moods plummet, fights break out, and the desire for fatty foods increases. By the time the weekend rolls around, American teenagers are, on average, ten hours behind on their sleep, which may explain the stupid decisions that get made on Friday nights. Weekends and school vacations provide opportunities to begin catching up, but those twelve-to-twenty-hour slumbers for which teenagers are famous usually do not fully make up for what was lost.”

We’ve talked about sleep’s profound importance in our lives. We’ve seen scientific evidence on the benefits of sleep. So, where do we go from here?

Here are some simple ways to sleep better (and get your children to do the same)  

1. Change the way we talk about sleep

Arianna Huffington, author of the book 'The Sleep Revolution,' suggests that the first step in promoting good family sleep habits is changing the way we talk about sleep. Sleep is akin to punishment. Often we say things like “If you don’t eat your vegetables at dinner, you’re going straight to bed.” Children are taught early on that sleep is something to avoid as long as possible. We need to change that. 

"We need to do a much better job of framing sleep in a positive way for our children, letting them know that sleep is a vital part of being able to play and have fun, and teaching them healthy sleep habits, including naps and transitions to bedtime, that will last a lifetime.”

American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society have determined that for individuals between the ages of eighteen and sixty, a minimum of seven hours of sleep a night is essential for optimal health. And that's what we should aim for. 

But simply asking our children to get more sleep alone won't give the desired results. We need to actively work with them to change some factors that might be affecting their sleep. 

Are our kids overscheduled? Do they have enough time for unstructured play and downtime? Are they spending too much time on their laptops, smartphones, or watching TV, especially before bedtime? By understanding these roadblocks, we can help our children make better use of their time and consequently help them get a better night's rest. 

2. Create the ideal environment for optimal sleep

We had previously talked about how light suppresses the production of melatonin, which signals us to sleep. So we should take steps—even before we climb into bed—to turn down the lights and make our room the kind of calming, quiet, dark space that will coax us toward sleep. The National Sleep Foundation advises using low-wattage incandescent bulbs in your bedroom.  

“We also know that blue light, the sort given off by our ubiquitous electronic devices, is especially good at suppressing melatonin—which makes it especially bad for our sleep. Staring at a blue-light-radiating device before you go to bed can serve as “an alert stimulus that will frustrate your body’s ability to go to sleep later,” says George Brainard, a circadian-rhythm researcher, and neurologist at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. 

Huffington suggests that we gently escort our smartphones out of our bedrooms at least thirty minutes before we fall asleep.

Judy Willis, Neuroeducator, University of California, suggests that teachers can encourage students to keep a sleep diary, jotting down how they felt during the day, what time they went to bed, when they woke, and how long they slept. Engage students in a class discussion about their findings while teaching them the benefits of sleep as discussed in this newsletter. Have students observe the effectiveness of time spent studying followed by a full night’s sleep, versus the same amount of time studying followed by less than seven hours of sleep. Share some interventions that are most helpful to their being able to fall asleep like having regular sleep and wake times, and avoiding bright screen time during the hour before sleep. With their own sleep diaries and what they learn from you about the physiology of sleep, students can make more informed decisions, sometimes choosing an extra hour of sleep over an hour spent playing video games or sending text messages. 

Here is a format of the sleep diary one can follow. 

Another factor that might be disturbing one's sleep is room temperature. According to a study by researchers from the Clinique du Sommeil in Lille, France, the ideal sleeping temperature is 60 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Read more: How Schools Can Promote Healthy Sleep Habits For Their Students

3. Make smart choices during the day 

Get up and move your body 

There’s plenty of science confirming the direct relationship between exercise and sleep. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania showed that those who walked for exercise got better sleep. Get creative and make running, yoga, gardening, or anything you like part of your everyday routine. 

"Even when you have a jam-packed day, try taking a longer route to your subway stop, take the stairs instead of the elevator, or park at the outer edge of the parking lot," suggests Huffington.

Read more: How to Get Kids More Physically Active at School 

Eat right and sleep tight

The obvious roadblock to getting sleep is going between caffeine and sugar all day so we end up tired but wired at night. Caffeine (and sugar) late in the afternoon or in the evening can seriously disrupt our sleep. Instead, try drinking a glass of warm milk or anything that puts you in a calm frame of mind. As teachers, keep reinforcing nutrition messages that help students make more informed choices about their eating habits. Here are some ways you can include them as part of the student nutrition campaign. 

Another roadblock is when we take our evening meal. Given our modern-day work schedule, we tend to eat late or eat at odd times. This can disrupt our circadian rhythms and our sleep-wake cycle. 

What we eat as part of our evening meal also matters. Spicy foods can cause heartburn and bloating. And a study has found that “at all dosages, alcohol causes a more consolidated first half sleep and an increase in sleep disruption in the second half of sleep. 

4. Believe tomorrow is a new day

Often, we are bogged down by our thoughts. We reminisce about the things that happened during the day, worrying about our never-completed to-do lists. 

“If we can’t slow our thoughts and disengage our minds from the daily stress and strain we experience, we have little chance of getting restful sleep. Strategies for doing this will vary from person to person, but yoga and meditation are good options." — Jennifer Ailshire, USC professor of gerontology. 

 One way to finish every day and be done with it is the “mind dump.” Before bed, write down all the things you can think of that you need to do. Jot down all the things you are grateful for. This can empty your mind, reassure you about what you have to do the next day, and focus your mind on the blessings in your life rather than setbacks. 

As you lie in bed, you can also practice breathing. Count out a few slow breaths when you have trouble falling asleep. One such version, the 4-7-8 method popularized by Dr. Andrew Weil, is rooted in the ancient Indian practice of pranayama. You inhale quietly through the nose for four counts, hold for seven counts, and exhale with a whooshing sound through the mouth for eight counts. Even if it doesn’t immediately put you to sleep, it can help calm and relax you.

5. Take naps when you can't get the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep

According to a study by Sorbonne University in Paris, short naps were found to lower stress and boost the immune system. 

“Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep,” said one study coauthor, Brice Faraut. “This is the first study that found napping could restore biomarkers of neuroendocrine and immune health to normal levels.” 

 Not convinced? Margaret Thatcher used to tell her staff not to bother her during her 2:30-to-3:30 p.m. nap. John F. Kennedy took a long nap after lunch. Bill Clinton made up for his famous late-night gab sessions with some restorative naps, while Winston Churchill is credited with coining the term “power nap.” 

So when you get the chance, do take that comforting nap.