Slow-wave sleep, which occurs more at the beginning of the night, is characterised by slow rhythms of electrical activity across large numbers of brain cells (occurring one to four times per second). As the night progresses, we have more and more REM sleep. During REM sleep we often have vivid dreams, and our brains show similar patterns of activity to when we are awake.
The typical person needs about eight hours of sleep, though there are big individual differences in what counts as optimal shut-eye from person to person, and the amount of sleep people need tends to decrease as they age. Nonetheless, most people don’t get the amount of sleep they need; as one study suggests, six hours of slee which might sound like a solid chun can be as bad as none at all.
Humans are surprisingly resilient creatures; our bodies and minds are pretty good at making do with things that aren’t exactly good for us, like chronic sleep deprivation. It’s easy to see how people quickly fall into a pattern of getting too little sleep, and then conclude that that’s just their normal baseline.
Even after a really long workday, you still may need to decompress in the evening, so you surf social media or watch a little TV. Before you know it, it’s an hour past when you should’ve gone to bed. On weekends, you stay out late to see a concert or watch a movie and hope to catch up in the morning, but your internal clock wakes you up close to when your alarm would anyway. Before you know it, you’ve run up a big sleep debt.
Maybe you only feel a little tired as a result, though, and with a little extra coffee you can still get by just fine. But just beneath the surface, your cognitive functioning is paying an unseen price. Here are a few of the areas where your brain might be struggling, even if that doesn’t consciously register.
- It’s harder to stay focused on the work you are doing when you are tired.
- It’s harder to remember new things.
- Not sleeping enough also hurts your mood.
- Finally, the quality of your sleep can have long-term consequences for your brain.
How do we give our brain the sleep it needs to function at optimal levels?
1. Figure out how much sleep you need to feel well rested.
Although the average person requires 7 to 9 hours of sleep, many individuals need more or less time. How do you know how much is optimal for you? If you feel refreshed, awaken without an alarm clock, feel alert throughout the day (without excessive use of caffeine), and do not fall asleep immediately after your head hits the pillow, chances are you are getting enough sleep. If you are not, try to gradually increase the amount of time you sleep until you feel well rested, and prioritize reaching that amount on a regular basis.
2. Schedule “downtime” prior to bedtime.
Engaging in a relaxing pre-bedtime ritual helps signal the body of the upcoming transition to sleep and improves sleep quality. Calming activities might include dimming the lights, reading, and listening to soft music. Also consider turning off blue-light devices about an hour before bedtime (e.g., televisions, cell phones, tablets), given that blue light has been shown to interfere with melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone.
3. If you can’t fall asleep after 10 minutes, get up and do something relaxing.
When we lie in bed and think about things for long periods of time before falling asleep, our brain unwittingly links lying in bed with thinking. As a result, we may automatically go into “thinking” mode rather than “sleeping” mode when we next lie down. To teach your brain to pair lying in bed with sleeping, if you cannot fall asleep after 10 minutes, get up and do something calming, such as reading or meditating. Then return to bed when you feel groggy. Repeat this as many times as necessary in a given night.
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