Secrets of proper sleep: how, how much and what to sleep on

Sleep is an impor­tant part of the life of every per­son who cares about their health and wants to always be in a great mood. A per­son spends a third of his entire life on it, and this is not so lit­tle! The secrets of sleep remain unsolved to this day, so a huge num­ber of sci­en­tists around the world are study­ing it, includ­ing neu­rol­o­gists, soci­ol­o­gists, and anthro­pol­o­gists. Always going to bed and wak­ing up at the same time is the pow­er of a habit devel­oped over the years. 4.5–6.0 hours of sleep is enough for one per­son, and some­one even after 8 hours spent in the arms of Mor­pheus feels over­whelmed and not at all rest­ed.

Sleep for health and longevity: why is it bad to stay awake at night?

Have you decid­ed to improve your sleep and now you are think­ing about when you need to go to bed and what time to start the alarm clock? The time of release and rise in mod­ern peo­ple large­ly depends on the lifestyle. Some, due to their pro­fes­sion, are peri­od­i­cal­ly forced to work the night shift. Over time, this becomes a habit, and this sleep pat­tern seems nor­mal.

The human body has great poten­tial and is able to com­pen­sate for the lack of sleep. In case of emer­gency, we can work for days with­out sleep and rest. How­ev­er, do not abuse this skill! The price of such an exhaust­ing rhythm of life for a per­son can be too high! Soon­er or lat­er, sys­tem­at­ic over­loads will lead to the fact that all the reserves of the body will be exhaust­ed, and it will begin to hurt and with­er away.

Also, do not for­get that a per­son sim­ply can­not stay awake at night all the time. This is not how our body works. We do not have night vision, and the rest of the sens­es are not par­tic­u­lar­ly devel­oped for night wake­ful­ness. Since ancient times, the sun has been the main reg­u­la­tor of activ­i­ty for peo­ple, there­fore, when it is not in the sky, a per­son is sup­posed to rest.

The deep­est sleep of a per­son and the most use­ful falls on the peri­od from 12 o’clock at night to 4 o’clock in the morn­ing. It is at this time that the most com­plete restora­tion of ener­gy reserves occurs, there is an inten­sive pro­duc­tion of hor­mones impor­tant for health, the events of the day are stored and processed in mem­o­ry. How­ev­er, in order for sleep dur­ing this peri­od of time to be of the high­est qual­i­ty by mid­night, you need to set the time for going to bed at 22.00.

Human sleep at night: why is it so important

Why do peo­ple pay so lit­tle atten­tion and time to night sleep, if it is so impor­tant? Doc­tors are sure that mod­ern, always run­ning and busy peo­ple sim­ply need to learn the rules of healthy sleep and make night work one of the habits that spoil health and destroy fam­i­lies. Eter­nal lack of sleep is harm­ful to health — it’s a fact!

This is true, because with­out a qual­i­ty reg­u­lar night’s rest, a per­son becomes extreme­ly irri­ta­ble, explo­sive, remem­bers new infor­ma­tion with great dif­fi­cul­ty and then can­not repro­duce it with high qual­i­ty, he is sim­ply not able to make deci­sions quick­ly and ade­quate­ly assess what is hap­pen­ing. His ner­vous sys­tem is under severe stress, wears out quick­ly and becomes extreme­ly vul­ner­a­ble.

How­ev­er, in addi­tion to the ner­vous sys­tem, the whole body also suf­fers. The result of reg­u­lar lack of sleep can be a vio­la­tion of hor­mon­al bal­ance and a weak­en­ing of the body’s defense sys­tem. In addi­tion, with­out high-qual­i­ty, suf­fi­cient night sleep, a per­son ages faster, the beau­ty of the body is lost, the skin becomes wrin­kled.

Lack of sleep dur­ing any ill­ness is espe­cial­ly harm­ful, since in the absence of a suf­fi­cient num­ber of hours of sleep at night, an increased pro­duc­tion of stress hor­mones begins. When exposed to the human body for a long time, they inhib­it the process­es of wound heal­ing and restora­tion of tis­sues and organs, and reduce over­all immu­ni­ty.

Force of habit: the right hang up, what to do before bed

Young peo­ple, as a rule, do not have a prob­lem called “How to fall asleep?”. They do not need to do any­thing spe­cial before going to bed so that Mor­pheus’s spell will work on them faster. All they need to do in order for sleep to final­ly over­take them is to take a hor­i­zon­tal posi­tion and a com­fort­able pos­ture.

For those who have already crossed the forty-year mile­stone, things are dif­fer­ent. Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics, about 40% of peo­ple have prob­lems sleep­ing at night, that is, they suf­fer from insom­nia, have dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep, or peri­od­i­cal­ly wake up at night for unknown rea­sons. Sleep dis­or­ders are espe­cial­ly com­mon in the elder­ly. Some of them sim­ply can­not sleep with­out sleep­ing pills.

In order to avoid prob­lems with falling asleep, it is rec­om­mend­ed not to strain your­self with aggres­sive infor­ma­tion before going to bed, for exam­ple, watch­ing news, films with neg­a­tive con­tent. It is best to read a lit­tle, knit or lis­ten to pleas­ant calm music right before bed­time — all this is a force of habit. At first it will be dif­fi­cult to rebuild, but then every­thing will enter into a rhythm and will be per­formed auto­mat­i­cal­ly.

Evening walks in the fresh air have a very good effect on the qual­i­ty of human sleep. A warm show­er or bath, as well as a medi­um-inten­si­ty mas­sage, will help to calm down and relax the mus­cles.

Quality sleep: what to sleep on?

The very sit­u­a­tion in the bed­room also plays a huge role in how quick­ly falling asleep will occur and what kind of sleep a per­son will have. The air in the room must be fresh. The air tem­per­a­ture should also be com­fort­able — with­in 20–22 °. And, of course, the room should be qui­et and dark. In extreme cas­es, a very dim night light is allowed.

Do you suf­fer from insom­nia or have a hard time falling asleep? Per­haps the rea­son for this is an uncom­fort­able mat­tress or a pil­low that is not suit­able for its rigid­i­ty. The main cri­te­ri­on for choos­ing these items of sleep­ing uten­sils is the com­fort of use and con­ve­nience. The firm­ness of the mat­tress on which you sleep should cor­re­spond to the weight of your body so that the spine takes a com­fort­able and safe posi­tion dur­ing sleep. The greater the weight of the per­son sleep­ing on the mat­tress, the high­er the rigid­i­ty of the mat­tress should be.

In addi­tion, age must be tak­en into account. So, chil­dren are rec­om­mend­ed to sleep on a flat, fair­ly hard and very elas­tic sur­face, while sleep­ing on a hard sur­face is con­traindi­cat­ed for old­er peo­ple, since blood cir­cu­la­tion may be dis­turbed in soft tis­sues.

As for the choice of pil­low, this is a pure­ly indi­vid­ual mat­ter. Down pil­lows are very pli­able and eas­i­ly take the shape you need. Such a pil­low can be rolled up in the form of a small roller or spread out under the head in an even lay­er. Pil­lows, in which, in addi­tion to down, feath­ers are also added, are more elas­tic. They are suit­able for those who like to sleep on their stom­ach. Syn­thet­ic pil­lows are easy to wash and dry, but they are not par­tic­u­lar­ly pli­able and slight­ly infe­ri­or to nat­ur­al coun­ter­parts, as they per­sis­tent­ly try to restore their orig­i­nal shape. If you like to sleep on your back, you can eas­i­ly put up with this qual­i­ty of syn­thet­ic pil­lows.