Hello everyone, this is Helen Huang @ Organizing, based in Beijing, China. In order to better learn and practice the YiXiaoNeng Time Management System, after finished publishing 100 Chinese articles, I decided to continue writing and publishing a daily English article in another 100 days based on the "YeWuBin Time Management 100 Episodes" audio program. Today is the 122nd day.
Today's topic is: How to Improve The Quantity of Our Sleep.
Scientists agree that we should sleep between 7 to 8 hours per night. Sleeping more or less are both detrimental to our health. The quantity of our sleep, then, is not much of a question. But how to improve the quantity of our sleep?
Today, we will discuss how to improve the quality of our sleep. How can we take full advantage of these 7 to 8 hours each night? And how do we improve our sleep quality so that we wake up refreshed and with more energy?
When we sleep, our bodies are not always resting at the same rate. In fact, according to scholars, when we sleep our brains operate at different intensities or cycles. Throughout a restful night of sleep, our body completes several of these cycles.
Each cycle is roughly divided into three parts:
1) The first category is the rapid eye movement cycle, also known as REM or REM sleep;
2) The second category is light sleep, it is the feeling of light drowsiness between waking and actual sleeping;
3) The third category is deep sleep, or what you might call sleeping soundly.
Have you ever felt very drowsy and confused after being forced awake? If so, you were awaken during your deep sleep cycle.
It is during rapid eye movement or REM sleep, that we have dreams. The brain still remains in the conscious state while your body is sleeping. In other words, your brain still thinks you are awake. You can tell someone is in REM sleep, because just like the name suggests, your eyes are moving very rapidly during this phase. REM sleep is very important, because the brain is processing information.
Shallow sleep is the transition phase between REM sleep and deep sleep.
In deep sleep, our blood pressure, breath rate, and pulse (that is how fast your heart beats) are reduced to a minimum, and the body achieves a state of complete relaxation.
So, deep sleep is the most important sleep stage. To be in good health, we must first ensure we achieve adequate deep sleep each night. During the deep sleep stage, the body's immune system will fight disease. If we don't get enough deep sleep, we may feel drowsy and nauseous, or experience headaches or muscle soreness...
So, how can we enter the deep sleep stage? And once we are in deep sleep, how can we stay in this phase for a sufficient length of time?
On a typical night, a healthy adult will complete 2-3 cycles of deep sleep. The first cycle of deep sleep is typically the longest.
This is true for each of the phases of sleep. Each night, a healthy adult we will go through cycles of REM sleep followed by shallow sleep, followed by deep sleep and then back to REM sleep. We should experience 2-3 cycles of this sleep pattern each night. The first cycle results in the deepest and longest deep sleep phase. The second cycle is a little lighter and a little shorter. And the last cycle is the lightest and shortest of the deep sleep phase.
In general, we will have 2-3 deep sleep phases and 3-4 REM stages each night, and the middle is the transitional shallow sleep stage.
Therefore, if you want to improve the quality of your sleep, which phase do you think is most important? You're absolutely right, we must improve our deep sleep first. If you can stretch out the amount of time you stay in your first deep sleep phase, then each subsequent deep sleep phase will be proportionally longer.
You may be wondering: Why is so important about deep sleep? What puts us in this state of extreme relaxation? I will tell you. Deep sleep is related to our body temperature. Our mental state is controlled by fluctuations in our internal body temperature.
In our previous lessons, we discussed that to manage our own energy, we must manage our own rhythm or cycles.
Every day, our body temperature fluctuates from low to high, and then from high back to low. Our body temperature is lowest at about 6:00 in the morning, and then it slowly increases as we wake up;
At noon, the body temperature reaches its peak, and then it begins to fall, and during this time we will be a little sleepy. Have you ever needed a 3:00PM coffee or sugar break? This is why。
Then, your body temperature begins to rise again, and reaches another peak at 10:00 in the evening. And then it begins to drop again, and reaches its lowest point at 6:00 in the morning – completing the daily cycle.
When the body temperature rises, we will feel energetic and awake, but when the temperature drops, we will feel very tired.
We know that our body temperature fluctuates in cycles, but what can affect our body temperature? --Melatonin. Melatonin affects body temperature.
Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the body when it is dark, which is usually when you sleep. When you sleep and it is dark, your body produces more and more melatonin which reduces our body temperature and thus we enter deeper levels of sleep.
Now you may be wondering, what affects the secretion of melatonin? Well, there are many factors actually, but really two have the greatest impact:
1) The first is the sunlight: we have mentioned the movement of the sympathetic nerves in the previous lectures. Sunlight restrains the secretion of sleep-inducing melatonin, which raises our body temperature, and makes you more alert. This is why you can wake up more quickly if you open the curtain and bask in the sunlight when you get up in the morning.
2) The second factor that controls melatonin secretion is movement. Movement causes our body to release more energy and it restrains the release of melatonin.
Some of us take a short nap in the middle of the day such as around 12 noon. This noon nap should not be more than 45 minutes. If it is, the human body will begin to enter deep sleep, which will interrupt your rhythm.
If you actually want to take a nap during the day, you'll need to enter deep sleep very quickly. To that I suggest putting on a sleep mask and ear plugs in order to isolate your senses from the sun and sound, which will help your body secrete melatonin, and you will enter deep sleep faster.
In addition, do not stay in bed after the end of a night sleep cycle, and do not sleep late on weekends. Make sure you get up on time on the workdays.
Try not to drink alcohol or use sleeping pills to help you sleep. They can disrupt your sleep cycle and in some cases become fatal if used improperly.
A night of good sleep also requires us to drink enough water. We should drink at least 8 cups of boiled water each day;
Do not overeat. Try not to eat food that is hard to digest. Do not eat late at night and especially do not eat before bedtime...
Students of Easy Efficiency time management tend to collect their tasks into Omnifocus before sleeping, to clear the brain of these concerns and allow the brain to fall in a relaxed sleeping state, and reduce the length of active REM sleep, and finally increase the length of deep sleep.
So in closing, remember, our ability to manage time effectively comes from working efficiently and that requires energy. To ensure we have enough energy each day, we must ensure we have enough quality sleep each night. Our sleep should last 7-8 hours each night and the quality of sleep comes from our ability to expand our deep sleep cycles.
Now you understand the science of sleep. In our next lesson, I will share with you specific tools you can use and habits you can develop to improve the quality of your sleep.
That's all today. Thank you being with me together today. Have a wonderful day!