How much do we know about sleep? How does sleep affect our lives, our health, our mood and even longevity? We have compiled what you need to know about sleep in 10 items.
1. We are told we need eight hours of sleep
We often hear that we should get eight hours of sleep every night. The UK NHS and the US National Sleep Foundation recommend this. But where does this advice come from? Studies conducted on different groups around the world reach a similar conclusion: those who sleep less and those who sleep more suffer from many diseases and have shorter lives.
It is not yet known whether lack of sleep causes diseases or whether it is a symptom of an unhealthy life. Those who sleep less than six hours a night and those who sleep more than nine or 10 hours a day are in this category.
Before puberty, children need to sleep at least 11 hours a night, and newborn babies need 18 hours. Adolescent children should sleep 10 hours a night.
Shane O'Mara, professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College Dublin, said it was difficult to say that poor sleep was a sign of poor health, but they fed each other.
For example, people who are not fit do not exercise and thus sleep poorly. Then they don't exercise because they are tired.
Chronic lack of sleep, defined as sleeping one or two hours a night over a period of time, has been repeatedly linked by scientists to poor health.
2. What happens to your body if you don't get enough sleep?
Lack of sleep is shown to be the cause of many disorders. 153 studies involving a total of five million people revealed that poor sleep is linked to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity.
Research shows that even a few nights of sleep deprivation puts healthy adults into a prediabetic state. Even moderate sleep deprivation impairs these people's ability to control their body's blood glucose levels.
Vaccines do not work when there is a lack of sleep, and this suppresses our immune system, making us more susceptible to infections.
One study found that people who slept less than seven hours were more likely to catch colds than those who slept more than seven hours.
The body of people who do not sleep enough secretes the hormone ghrelin, which is linked to high levels of hunger. This may cause the risk of obesity.
Insomnia is thought to be linked to problems with brain functions and even leading to dementia.
Prof. O'Mara says that toxic waste accumulates in the brain during the day and that this waste is eliminated from the body while we sleep. If you don't get enough sleep, you may experience a mild concussion.
The effects of sleeping too much are not well known. However, it is known to cause health problems, including mental decline, in the elderly.
3. We need three different types of sleep to repair ourselves
After falling asleep, we enter sleep phase cycles, each lasting 60 to 100 minutes. Each stage points to a different role in the processes in our body after sleep.
The first phase of each cycle is drowsiness between sleep and wakefulness. During this process, breathing slows down, muscles relax and heart rate decreases.
The second stage is a slightly deeper sleep. You may feel awake, but many nights you are asleep and don't realize it. The third stage is deep sleep. It is very difficult to wake up in this cycle because the activity in our body is minimized.
The second and third stages together are known as slow wave sleep and there is no dreaming during this period.
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After deep sleep, we return to the second stage for a few minutes and then enter the dream sleep known as REM. Meanwhile, we are dreaming.
In a whole sleep cycle, a person goes through all stages from one to three, then stays in the second stage for a short time and then falls into REM sleep.
Later cycles have longer REM periods, and interrupting sleep affects REM.
4. Shift workers with disrupted sleep patterns get sick more often
It is said that shift work is associated with many health problems. Researchers have found that shift workers who sleep less during the wrong part of the day increase their risk of diabetes and obesity.
Research in the UK has revealed that shift workers describe their health as "fair or poor". People in this group have a higher risk of developing long-term illnesses than people who do not work shifts.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, shift workers receive more health reports.
5. Many of us are more sleep deprived than ever before
Judging by media reports, it looks like we have an insomnia epidemic. But is he really more sleepless than before?
A study examining data from 15 countries presents us with a mixed picture. Sleep duration decreased in six countries, increased in seven countries, and mixed results were found in two countries.
A lot of evidence tells us that the amount of sleep hasn't changed much over several generations. However, if you ask people how sleep-deprived they are, a different picture emerges.
So why do so many people say they are tired? Since this problem focuses on certain groups, it may prevent us from seeing the trend in the general population.
Sleep problems may vary with age and gender. A study of two thousand British adults suggested that women have more difficulty sleeping than men at all ages.
This rate equalizes in adolescence. However, when women start having children and working life is added to this, they suffer from insomnia more than men. This gap closes towards the end of life.
Professor Derk-Jan Dijk, from the University of Surrey's sleep research centre, says staying up late and engaging in social activities means some people get less rest, even if they sleep the same length of time.
Some people sleep less during the week and try to catch up on their sleep on the weekend. However, even though the average increases, these people experience sleep deprivation.
Prof. According to Dijk, the risk of sleep deprivation in teenage children is great.
6. Our sleeping patterns weren't always like this
People generally sleep seven to eight hours a night, except for those like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who said she was content with just four hours of sleep a night.
According to Roger Ekirch from Virginia Tech University in the USA, this order was not always like this. According to the results of a 16-year study published by Ekirch in 2001, a hundred years ago in many parts of the world, people's sleep was divided into two large parts.
According to two thousand pages of documents obtained by Ekirch from diaries, court records and literary works, people fell asleep for the first time shortly after sunset and began their second sleep after being awake for two hours.
Based on this, Ekirch concluded that the body naturally prefers fragmented sleep.
Other scientists disagree. Other researchers have found that in hunter-gatherer communities, people slept in single blocks even though there was no electricity. This means that sleeping in two pieces is not a natural human trait.
Dr. According to Ekirch, the reason behind the transition from two-piece sleep to one-piece sleep was that sleep hours were postponed with the arrival of electricity in homes in the 19th century, artificial light changed the human body clock, and the industrial revolution gave great importance to productivity and efficiency.
7. Phones keep teenagers awake
Sleep experts reveal that teenagers should sleep at least 10 hours a night, but according to health data, even half of them do not sleep that much.
It becomes difficult for young people to sleep in bedrooms that are supposed to be rest rooms but are filled with many devices such as laptops and mobile phones.
68%
The percentage of young people who say that looking at screens until late hours reduces their school performance
45% look at their phones in bed
10% check their phones more than 10 times a night.
In a time when we have more forms of entertainment than ever before, the temptation to stay awake is great. Blue light emitted from electronic devices disturbs our sleep. Talking to our friends or watching TV stimulates our brain instead of relaxing.
Experts recommend doing a "digital detox" by quitting cell phones 90 minutes before bed.
8. Increased tests for sleep disorders
More people are going to doctors with sleep problems.
Analyzing data from the UK Health Service, the BBC found that the number of sleep disorder tests has increased every year over the last decade.
Dr. from the Sleep Disorder Center at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital. Guy Leschziner attributes this to the increase in obesity.
Leschziner said the most common complaint is obstructive sleep apnea, in which people stop breathing while they sleep, and this is also weight-related.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is recommended for insomnia, not sleeping pills.
9. What is the situation like in other countries?
One study examined sleep habits in 20 industrialized countries. There was a difference of at most an hour between when people went to sleep and when they woke up, but sleep duration was generally similar across countries.
In general, if a population goes to bed later, they wake up later. Researchers concluded that working hours, school time, and leisure habits play a much more important role than the natural cycle of light and dark.
In Norway, where light duration varies from zero to 24 hours every day for a year, sleep duration varies by only half an hour throughout the year.
In places where dusk and dawn hours change with the seasons, such as the UK, or where these hours do not change much in countries close to the equator, sleep duration does not change much throughout the year.
So what are the effects of artificial light? When three communities without access to electricity were examined in Tanzania, Namibia and Bolivia, the average sleep time was 7.7 hours, as in industrial countries.
Sleep duration is similar across the world. There are slight differences in the times we go to bed and wake up.
Most research shows that artificial light delays bedtime but does not reduce sleep duration.
10. Early birds and night owls
There have always been morning people and evening people. We even have the genetic traces to back it up.
With the introduction of artificial light into our lives, people who like to stay awake at night seem to be particularly affected by this. If you're a night owl, artificial light may keep you awake longer. 30 percent of people are morning people, 30 percent are evening people, and the remaining 40 percent are somewhere in the middle. Still, most people prefer waking up early to going to bed late at night.
However, we do have some control over our body clocks. Naturally, those who go to bed late can benefit from more natural light during the day by being exposed to less light in the evening.
By taking volunteer subjects camping in Colorado, in an environment without artificial light, a group of researchers managed to advance their body clocks by two hours within 48 hours.
The hormone melatonin, which prepares us for sleep, started to rise earlier in the subjects, so they were ready for sleep closer to sunset.
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