High Quality Sleep Is Critical for Good Health

Most people believe that all sleep is the same, as long as you sleep. This isn't right. There are, in fact, two types of sleep: high quality and low quality. And some people enjoy high quality night after night, while others rarely find it. Low quality sleep can be seen by looking at people's brain waves while sleeping. These waves break in places and are generally quite different from the waves around them.

Low quality sleep makes you feel damp, sweaty, restless and sleepy during the day. In fact, if you feel this way it indicates that your sleep is of poor quality. Instead of high quality sleep, instead:

• Recover and revitalize your body and mind.
• Helps you avoid depression and anxiety.
• Reduces the risk of heart and cardiovascular disease.
• Promotes your immune system.
• Improve your concentration and memory throughout the day.

Of course, you should be able to experience many of these things the next day, and if you can't, you may experience low quality sleep.

While it may appear that your body is not functioning while you are sleeping, this is not true. Important changes are in effect. They include:

• Your heart rate and blood pressure decrease.
• Your respiratory rate is decreasing.
• Your body temperature drops a bit.
• Growth hormones are released.
• Cortisol is released (some are released during the day).

These things are important to regenerate your body and get it ready for the next day. They do not perform as efficiently and smoothly as they do in low quality sleep. And that's one of the reasons you don't feel full and ready for today.

You can look into this problem more closely if you look in detail at how sleep occurs. It's not as easy as sleeping, and then waking up 8 hours later. Your body actually does 4 or 5 cycles of about 90 minutes per night. Each cycle consists of two stages of light sleep, two levels of deep sleep, and one REM level, or dream, sleep. Each of these stages is easily reflected in the waves that your brain provides at night. Both the frequency (speed) and amplitude (height) of these waves change as you sleep. The main change is that they slow down, and their amplitude increases.

The first stage of sleep, referred to as one and two, is light sleep, and they occur shortly after you fall asleep. Your brain waves are still a bit slow, but as you go to sleep they slow down and you get to level 3, then stage 4 of what is called deep sleep. It's really hard to wake you up from deep sleep. You can spend up to 45 minutes in deep sleep (young people spend most of their time here), but you end up in bed. And finally you get into REM, or dream dreams. This is the point where you are closest to being awake, and your brain waves have accelerated. You can dream anywhere from a few minutes to twenty minutes or so, and then you return to stage 2 light sleep, then sleep well. You go through this cycle 4 or 5 times at night.

If you sleep well, everything goes well and you don't wake up. (In fact, almost everyone wakes up for a very short time at night, but they go back to sleep quickly and can't remember to get up.)

Brain waves associated with high quality sleep are usually uniform in each level, and the transition from level to level is smooth. The brain waves of poor youths, in turn, have an irregular section in them called fragmented and irregular fragments. They are basically a sudden change from a regular slow wave to a fast wave that resembles awake. Many of these fractions occur overnight. Not all of them wake the person up, so someone who sleeps less often does not realize they are not sleeping well.

This has led to many problems with sleep, including:

• Not enough sleep.
• Not enough REM sleep.
• Broken and irregular rounds.
• Too much sleep light.
• Sudden changes in normal body changes at night.

They also tend to make sleepers flutter and change dramatically at night, and this is also an indication of poor quality sleep. The first two in the list above are very important because deep sleep and REM are the two most important sleep stages. Sleep in relieving your body, and REM sleep appears to restore your mind.

What all this does is: if you want the benefits of high quality sleep, you need to get rid of the breakdowns found in low quality sleep. How do you do this? There are many long and comprehensive lists of things you need to do to get a good night's sleep and I won't try to cover everything; I will focus only on the most important things to eliminate breakdowns and low quality sleep. They are:

• A good sleep pattern starts with a change in the daytime, especially hours before bed. During this last hour you need to rest and wind down. It is also important to follow the same schedule (especially bedtime) from day to day.
• If you really do exercise at bedtime, a "wave of drowsiness" will occur. Wait, if you can.
• Tossing and turning cause a lot of breakdowns, so finish with pillows, mattresses, covers and so on.
• Really relax while you sleep. Get off! Leave all the problems behind.
• It is important when you are in bed to get rid of all the "racing thoughts," especially the negative thoughts and feelings related to work or problems you may have.
• Don't worry about anything. In particular, don't worry if you don't fall asleep anytime soon. Enjoy your relaxation. Think of it as fun.
• After shutting down all your thoughts and enjoying your feelings, try to get a picture of the quiet and peaceful place you enjoy. Concentrate on them. Imagine them.

If you follow this routine, your sleep will improve significantly.

High Quality Sleep Is Critical for Good Health


==========================