What Happens During Sleep?
Getting a good night’s sleep is an essential part of health and wellbeing. But if you’re not sleeping enough, your body can’t repair itself and it can lead to feelings of sadness, anxiety and irritability. Sleep is also vital for brain function, mental acuity and memory. During sleep, the brain deals with all the information it has received during the day, consolidates memories and clears away plaque-forming proteins that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Sleep has long been one of the great mysteries of human life. Scientists don’t know exactly what happens during sleep, but they do know that it is a very important process. Almost all mammals die without sleep, and the average person needs about seven hours of sleep per night.
The underlying reason for this appears to be that if you don’t get enough sleep, your body is not able to carry out all of its important processes, including memory consolidation and immune system activation. Insufficient sleep is also linked with weight gain, depression and mental health disorders, and it can contribute to a host of other physical conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.
A person’s need for sleep may vary throughout the life cycle, and it is not possible to make up for lost sleep. If you’re not getting enough sleep, the best thing you can do is try to schedule your daily routine so that you have time to go to bed and wake up at a consistent time every day. You can also help yourself sleep better by avoiding caffeine, nicotine and alcohol before bed, making sure your bedroom is comfortable, and using a white noise machine or app to muffle sounds.
As you fall asleep, a series of brain and body changes occurs, including a drop in heart rate and breathing. Muscles relax, and brain activity slows down, with a burst of electrical energy that briefly spikes in the front of the brain before slowing further. This is the beginning of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Then, during stage two of NREM, your eyes stop moving and you begin to breathe more deeply. The final phase of NREM is known as deep or restorative sleep, and it helps to resupply the cells, tissues and muscles in the body that have used up energy during the day.
The NREM cycle repeats during the night, but these cycles can differ from person to person. Experts recommend between seven and nine hours of sleep for adults to maintain optimal health.
Modern medicine’s understanding of sleep is like a partially assembled jigsaw puzzle, and researchers are still trying to figure out all the pieces. But they do know that sleep is crucial to health, and that people who get less than seven hours of sleep on a regular basis have increased rates of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. They also tend to be unable to concentrate and focus during the day, so they perform less well at work and school.