I consider myself to be an expert
sleepier. Even as a kid, I never argued when it was time for a nap or
time to go to bed. In college, I managed to get more sleep than most
of my peers. I rarely pulled all-nighters and when I did, I made up
for it the next day.
The reason for this is simple: I need
it. I’m miserable if I didn’t get enough sleep. Everything feels like
a huge effort. I can’t focus, I’m unproductive and am not very
pleasant to be around. Caffeine doesn’t help. It just makes me feel like
my heart’s going to pop out of my chest and I bounce off the walls
like one of those bouncy balls you get from a machine at the food
store. That feeling is just a different type of miserable.
Let’s start with what happens when we
sleep. There are five stages of sleep. The first is the transition
between being awake and falling asleep. It should last only about 5
or 10 minutes. There is a high amplitude of theta waves (slow brain waves) during this stage which relaxes you and
prepares you for the next stage. In the next 20 minute stage, the brain
shows signs of sleep spindles (which are very rapid brain waves).
Body temperature decreases and your heart rate drops. You then
transition from light sleep to delta sleep (a more deep sleep). This
is only about 30 minutes. The fifth and final stage is where you
enter rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Here is where you actually
dream, your breathing and brain activity increase and your muscles
relax. It’s important to note that these stages work on a cycle and
are not necessarily in numerical order. So, REM sleep does not last
the rest of the night. You get about an hour or so of that then
circle back around to one of the other stages. Missing any stage,
especially the fifth stage (REM sleep) will leave you feeling
unrested.
So, why is this cycle so important?
Seems like such a waste of time doesn’t it? Adults are advised to
sleep seven to nine hours of sleep a night. Most people don’t
manage to do this on a consistent basis. The national average is only 6.7
hours a night. This is down from 7 hours a few years ago. Why aren’t we getting enough sleep?
Well, there’s work, family, the Internet… whatever your reason, you
are likely doing yourself a disservice.
There are also several
disorders that prevent people from getting enough sleep no matter how
hard they try. Insomnia is probably the most common and well known.
You either can’t fall asleep or may wake up frequently during the
night. Now, the first problem is obvious but the second maybe not so
much. If you wake up frequently in the night you cannot get through
the five stages of sleep that we just discussed which are all very important to feel well
rested.
If you snore, the problem is the noise.
It can wake you (and your sleeping partner) up multiple times in the
night. Sleep apnea is a more serious sleep problem in which snoring
is a symptom. You will stop breathing for a short amount of time
while asleep which wakes you up. It may be a sign of more serious
conditions like high blood pressure and heart problems. If you
believe you have sleep apena seek medical help.
Narcolepsy is a disorder where you are
tired during the day almost all the time. This may be accompanied by
randomly falling asleep during the day and many movies make it out as
if this is something that happens to all people who are narcoleptic.
That is not the case. Most commonly it’s just that you feel excessively tired.
Restless legs syndrome may also keep
you awake. It is the need to move your legs in the evenings which can
keep you awake or wake you up in the middle of the night.
At some point in almost everyone’s
life, they have experienced nightmares which cause them to lose sleep. They may wake you up leaving
you feeling stressed and anxious and unable to get back to sleep whether you remember them or not.
This happens during REM sleep (where you dream) and is most common in
children. In adults, medications, depression and other psychological disorders may cause nightmares.
Another common disorder, mostly found in
children, is sleepwalking. There are many forms of this but while
still asleep you do activities that you aren’t aware you are doing.
Mostly it’s walking around the house doing normal activities, but it
can in rare cases be dangerous like someone leaving the
house, eating excessive amounts of food or participating in high risk
behaviors.
Now let’s assume most people don’t have
any of these disorders and still people in the United States are
getting less than the recommended amount of sleep. This is for some
of the reasons I listed above. The truth is while you may not feel
sleepy in reality you are. It’s sort of like people who are
starving stop feeling hungry. When you are tired all the time, that
feeling becomes normal. Your body adapts and gives you the illusion
of being one of those prized people who only needs four hours of
sleep a night. It’s simply just not good for anyone.
So, why do we need sleep at all? That
question is still up for debate. The evolutionary theory is
that we sleep at night in order to stay inactive. When inactive, you
are quiet which would make it harder for predators to find you. The
issue with this theory is when asleep, you are not aware of your
surroundings. If you aren’t aware of your surroundings, you are
vulnerable to predators. Another part of this theory is that you
sleep to conserve energy. Those who sleep longer when food is scarce
will have slower energy metabolisms and can last longer without
eating. Plus, at night it’s harder for humans to search for food so
it’s a good time to conserve energy. Generally though, this theory is
not given too much credence.
Studies have shown that if you
deprive an animal of sleep, their immune systems start to fail and
die in just a few weeks. Due to these findings, the restorative theory has gained
some support. The restorative theory states that we sleep in order to
restore and repair the body from all that has happened to it during
the day. It may also be a chance to reduce the level of adenosine
from the brain. This is produced by the brains cells when awake and
when the brain becomes saturated with it, you feel tired. When you
sleep, the amount of adenosine is reduced in the brain making you
feel less tired. This is why caffeine is so effective at keeping us awake for it is an adenosine antagonist. Meaning it interferes with adenosine levels in the brain making it less effective at putting you to sleep.
The final argument is the brain
plasticity theory. The theory says that the brain is able to change
and reorganize as necessary while we sleep. We know that infants and
young children sleep 13 to 16 hours a day, most of this is REM sleep.
This is the time period in a human’s life when we develop, so the
increased need for sleep could have something to do with it. Further,
studies have shown that when deprived of sleep, we are unable to
learn to do things or perform tasks. This might also suggest that
sleep helps us process and solidify facts and tasks we are taught
while awake. Therefore without sleep we wouldn’t be as intelligent as
we are.
Whatever the reason, sleep is
important. While it is hard to get those much needed hours, don’t
forget that your health is at risk. In fact you can last longer
without food than without sleep! Everyone makes such a great effort to
exercise, eat right and be successful. Sleep to most seems to be a
waste of time. Those eight hours could be spent learning something,
doing work or your favorite hobby. But that extra cup of coffee in
the morning to help you make it through the day and make up for the
fact that you only had four hours of sleep, is not doing you a favor.
In fact, it may be killing you.