Sleep tips
What happens to us while we sleep
By Deluxe Sleep · Published on
What happens to us while we sleep
Did you sleep well? If so, you're surely fit today to master the day's challenges. If not, you're most likely less capable and more easily irritated. There are many factors that influence sleep, and we know from our own experience that we feel better and more comfortable with enough sleep. Research has also established that sleep is important for the immune system and boosts brain performance. Despite these findings, much about the topic of sleep, and especially about sleep duration, still remains unclear.
Sleep in science: the four sleep phases
After a long, exhausting day, tiredness inevitably overtakes us. All we want then is to give in to it and fall asleep. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. What happens to us during sleep is extremely fascinating. Who would have thought, for example, that we wake up up to thirty times a night without noticing it?
"Sleep runs through four phases: light, medium, deep and REM (Rapid Eye Movement). They follow one another in this order and together last around 70 to 110 minutes," explains Luise Deiters, specialist for corporate health management at the AEH Centre and sleep expert.
Luise Deiters, sleep expert at AEH
While sleeping, we hardly notice how we pass through the four phases, even though we can appear quite restless from the outside: except during the REM phase, we're constantly in motion and change our sleeping position up to 40 times. Even so, the body regenerates during this time, and its activity is scaled right down.
"More and more people are suffering from sleep problems," says Deiters. Trouble falling or staying asleep stems either from physical, but especially from psychological causes, and can have massive effects on body and mind. Up to a certain degree, however, we can influence sleep duration and quality ourselves.
What kind of sleeper are you?
Some practically leap out of bed in the morning, while others are almost impossible to wake. "Essentially, a distinction is made between larks and owls, meaning early risers and people who are active at night," summarises Luise Deiters. An important prerequisite for good, restful sleep is finding the right bedtime, which differs between larks and owls. "It's also decisive that there's enough sleep pressure, which is influenced by the release of the sleep hormone melatonin and the length of time spent awake." So there's little point going to bed if you're not actually feeling sleepy yet.
But there are other precautions you can take. This starts with choosing a mattress with the right firmness and creating the right sleep atmosphere by darkening the room, and extends through regular bedtimes and wake-up times to bedtime rituals and evening relaxation exercises that stimulate our parasympathetic nervous system. As the counterpart to the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for activity and readiness to perform, the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for relaxation and regeneration. Yoga or breathing exercises, for example, are particularly well suited to promoting relaxation.
Giving in to dreams
Once we've fallen asleep, we literally enter a dream world. This is easier if we've already left the everyday worries behind before going to bed and are looking forward to a calm, restful night with deep sleep. Because if the night was good, the day is sure to be good too.
Source: This article is based on an article from the BICO sleep blog (bico.ch). The research findings, product developments and test results mentioned in it come from BICO or from the respective named third parties, in this article especially from Luise Deiters, sleep expert at the AEH Centre.