One daily activity that has the most profound impact on our health, productivity, mood, and memory is sleep. Yet, more than one-third of U.S. adults get less than the recommended amount (7–9 hours), limiting their potential to succeed both academically and professionally. It’s time to get inside our heads to understand why a good night’s rest is critical to our success.
Sleep is made up of several stages — each lasts about 90–110 minutes. While we rest, our bodies turn off, but our brains continue to work throughout the night.
Stage 1: Just Drifting
Stage 1 is a period of light sleep. In these first few moments of dozing off, many people experience the falling sensation and involuntary muscle jerks.
Stage 2: Sawing Logs
You become fully asleep in stage 2. Brain waves slow down as spurts of activity — called sleep spindles and k-complexes — help suppress any to outside stimuli.
Stage 3: Total Relaxation
During this restorative period of slow-wave sleep, your breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure reach their lowest levels. Memory consolidation of facts and events also takes place.
REM: Deep in Dreamland
During rapid eye movement sleep (REM), your muscles become paralyzed while your brain works overtime. This period involves intense brain activity, such as dreaming, memory consolidation, and information processing.
It’s easy to push aside sleep in favor of school or work commitments, but it may end up causing more harm than good. 45% of Americans say that poor or insufficient sleep negatively affected their daily activities at least once in the past week. And when a lack of sleep or disruptive sleep becomes habitual, it can have even longer-lasting effects.
Sleep deprivation can impact learning, attention, decision-making, and memory, especially if you’re not getting enough slow wave or REM sleep.
Sleep problems is one of the top 3 factors that negatively impacted college students’ academic performance.
Sleep quantity and quality have a huge impact on mood. When you’re not feeling well-rested, you can be more irritable, angry, overwhelmed, and stressed.
91% of Americans report that too little sleep was a stress trigger.
Since sleep contributes to our health and well-being, a lack of it is correlated with problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and depression.
SLEEP BAD, FEEL BAD
67% of Americans who reported “less than good” sleep quality also reported “poor” or “only fair” health.
You owe it to yourself to get the right amount of sleep each night. Now that you understand why sleep is so important, here are some tips from the National Sleep Foundation on how you can catch some of those precious z’s.
Create the ideal environment
Set the scene for a good night’s sleep. In the evening, keep the room dark and set your thermostat to a cooler temperature. In the morning, let natural light come in to help signal when it’s time to wake.
Working late on your computer or texting on your iPhone may be keeping you up. Blue-light screens can suppress the hormone (melatonin) that helps regulate your sleep patterns. Be sure to set aside enough time to turn off before you turn in.
Stick to a Schedule
When the weekend comes, it may be tempting to stay up late or sleep in. But this can disrupt your natural sleep cycle and make you feel like you’re experiencing jet lag. When planning your weekend activities, try to stick to your weekday sleep schedule.
Sleep is more than just letting our bodies rest; it’s about making sure we feel great, think clearly, and perform to the best of our abilities. So turn off the lights, hit the hay, and start slumbering.