Somnologist’s tips for good dreams

Sleep is one of the basic human needs. Like breath, food, and water. If a per­son is deprived of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sleep, the neg­a­tive con­se­quences will not be long in com­ing.

With­in a day, the abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate notice­ably decreas­es, the reac­tion wors­ens, the num­ber of errors in the per­for­mance of habit­u­al actions increas­es by a third. After 3 days, the work of the hor­mon­al sys­tem is dis­rupt­ed, neur­al con­nec­tions in the brain are destroyed. After anoth­er 2 days, behav­ior changes: aggres­sion may occur. Hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions appear. After a week, speech becomes slurred, thoughts are con­fused, mem­o­ry laps­es become appar­ent. Hands and feet trem­ble with weak­ness so that a per­son is deprived of the abil­i­ty to per­form any action. How­ev­er, he is no longer able to do any­thing con­scious­ly by this time. If the body is not allowed to sleep fur­ther, it will sim­ply turn off or die.

The harm of lack of sleep

It is absolute­ly proven that the lack of nor­mal sleep is fun­da­men­tal­ly harm­ful to health. For exam­ple, the risk of devel­op­ing dia­betes and obe­si­ty is sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased. This is due to dis­tur­bances in the enzyme sys­tem of the body, which begins to mal­func­tion if a per­son does not get enough sleep reg­u­lar­ly.

The car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem also suf­fers, and the risk of get­ting chron­ic depres­sion and weak­en­ing the immune sys­tem also increas­es. Even the intestines begin to work incor­rect­ly: a ten­den­cy to con­sti­pa­tion devel­ops or, on the con­trary, diar­rhea begins. Experts also note an increased risk of devel­op­ing fibromyal­gia and hyper­ten­sion.

Sleep related misconceptions

• It used to be believed that the key to health lies in ear­ly awak­en­ing. Who­ev­er gets up ear­ly, our ances­tors said, God gives him. Actu­al­ly it is not. Rather, it is not true for all peo­ple to the same extent. A lot of peo­ple work much more pro­duc­tive­ly and cre­ative­ly if they are giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wake up lat­er: at 9–10 o’clock. And there are not so many ear­ly birds.
• Some elder­ly peo­ple and well-known politi­cians and busi­ness­men proud­ly say that they sleep very lit­tle, no more than 4–5 hours a day. And this is enough for them to get enough sleep and work effi­cient­ly and achieve suc­cess all day long. Noth­ing is usu­al­ly said about what such lack of sleep leads to. This includes emo­tion­al burnout, depres­sion, and an increased risk of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Most nor­mal peo­ple need at least 8–10 hours. Invol­un­tary sleep depri­va­tion is espe­cial­ly detri­men­tal to ado­les­cents. As a result of con­stant lack of sleep, it is dur­ing ado­les­cence that var­i­ous men­tal ill­ness­es begin, from anorex­ia or bulim­ia to schiz­o­phre­nia and drug addic­tion.
• It is believed that shift work is nor­mal. The night worked — the day you sleep off. In fact, a fail­ure in the nor­mal, nat­ur­al alter­na­tion of night and day activ­i­ty is fraught with var­i­ous dis­eases. After a month and a half, prob­lems with the reg­u­la­tion of blood glu­cose lev­els can begin, and this is a sure way to type 2 dia­betes and obe­si­ty. These dan­ger­ous phe­nom­e­na are caused by a vio­la­tion of the pro­duc­tion of mela­tonin, which is also called the night hor­mone. Mela­tonin is pro­duced by the pineal gland only at night, in the dark, in a sleep­ing organ­ism. There is also evi­dence that those who work at night are more at risk of devel­op­ing breast can­cer and stom­ach ulcers.

You need to sleep right

How much sleep do you need?

It is best to focus on the needs of the body. Usu­al­ly, for good health, it is enough to sleep 7–9 hours at night. If you feel con­stant drowsi­ness, and even a long sleep does not bring relief, you should under­go an exam­i­na­tion. You may have ane­mia, low blood pres­sure, or oth­er med­ical con­di­tions.

What to sleep on?

The place to sleep should be com­fort­able. Best of all, a clas­sic bed with an ortho­pe­dic mat­tress of mod­er­ate hard­ness. The pil­low should also not be too big and soft. Even the bed linen with which the bed is made is impor­tant. It should be hygro­scop­ic, pleas­ant to the touch and clean.

In what position to sleep?

Most peo­ple pre­fer to sleep on their side with their legs slight­ly bent. This is the best posi­tion for preg­nant women and for those who suf­fer from dis­eases of the joints and spine. With severe pain in the low­er back and hip joints, you can put a pil­low between your knees, this will relieve the pain a lit­tle.

If you sleep on your back, it is best to place a pil­low under slight­ly bent knees. This will help to avoid morn­ing stiff­ness in the low­er back.

But som­nol­o­gists do not advise sleep­ing on the stom­ach. With this posi­tion of the body, the cer­vi­cal and lum­bar ver­te­brae expe­ri­ence exces­sive stress, which will inevitably lead to pain and oth­er unpleas­ant symp­toms lat­er. Espe­cial­ly if you have a large high pil­low.

Do you need sleepwear?

It is best to sleep com­plete­ly naked. But if you wear sleep­wear, then you need to choose it cor­rect­ly: loose, with­out tight elas­tic bands and hard fas­ten­ers, sewn from nat­ur­al mate­ri­als.