Sleep organization: proper rest and disease prevention

Many peo­ple expe­ri­ence sleep prob­lems at least occa­sion­al­ly due to inter­mit­tent work sched­ules, night shifts, over­load or stress. Often, a hard day and fatigue lit­er­al­ly knock you off your feet, but when you go to bed, you can’t fall asleep quick­ly and with­out prob­lems, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly affects the qual­i­ty of rest. It is some­times dif­fi­cult to fall asleep in the pres­ence of cer­tain dis­eases that dis­rupt well-being and form pain and malaise. Yes, and the bed itself and the sit­u­a­tion in the bed­room can often be provo­ca­teurs of sleep prob­lems — if there is an aller­gy to fluff and feath­er pil­lows, laun­dry deter­gents or stuffi­ness and hot dry air dis­rupt breath­ing, mak­ing the process of falling asleep dif­fi­cult. How to nor­mal­ize sleep?

Sleep disorders — a problem of our time

Due to prop­er sleep, it is pos­si­ble to rest the whole body, and espe­cial­ly the ner­vous sys­tem, which expe­ri­ences enor­mous loads every day. The most dif­fi­cult thing to sleep is for res­i­dents of large met­ro­pol­i­tan areas with eter­nal noise, excess light and con­stant fuss. On aver­age, a mod­ern per­son­’s sleep is a cou­ple of hours short­er than it should be, and some peo­ple have three or more hours of sleep depri­va­tion, which neg­a­tive­ly affects their health. Con­stant fatigue and irri­tabil­i­ty form dis­or­ders of the ner­vous sys­tem, chron­ic fatigue syn­drome, weak­ened immu­ni­ty and somat­ic dis­eases. The accu­mu­la­tion of fatigue due to lack of sleep leads to depres­sion and neu­roses.

In the mod­ern world, a full-fledged sleep should be about 9–10 hours, and not the pre­vi­ous­ly pre­scribed eight. This is due to the impact on the psy­che of the abun­dance of gad­gets, and on somat­ic health — unfa­vor­able ecol­o­gy, stress and noise, radi­a­tion and vibra­tion. How­ev­er, even if you go to bed on time, it is not always pos­si­ble to have a good and com­plete rest due to the fact that the sur­round­ing con­di­tions are unfa­vor­able for sleep.

Disease, stress and insomnia

Many dis­eases and even phys­i­o­log­i­cal con­di­tions can sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect the qual­i­ty and dura­tion of sleep. So, exces­sive­ly vio­lent, pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive emo­tions in the evening, due to the active release of stress hor­mones into the blood, can overex­cite the ner­vous sys­tem, pre­vent­ing it from calm­ing down in time and tune in to sleep. There­fore, you should not go to the gym before going to bed, have fun for a long time or sort things out, quar­rel.

Dis­eases asso­ci­at­ed with pain, as well as patholo­gies that cause dizzi­ness and nau­sea, can deprive you of sleep for a long time. The pres­ence of dis­eases of the uri­nary sys­tem, tak­ing diuret­ics before bed­time can dis­rupt it due to the need to get up to the toi­let. Diets for cor­rect­ing nutri­tion or in the treat­ment of diges­tive dis­eases, restrict­ing food before bed­time threat­en to dis­turb sleep due to hunger, all thoughts will hov­er around the refrig­er­a­tor.

Organization of a good rest

To have a good rest, not every­one is helped only by lay­ing in bed under the cov­ers with clos­ing your eyes and relax­ing. Not all peo­ple can sleep in any envi­ron­ment and have a good rest. The bed­room, in order for it to pro­vide a good rest, should be devoid of any equip­ment (TVs, lap­tops, tape recorders). An ide­al rest will be pro­vid­ed by a bed­room devoid of any addi­tion­al ele­ments oth­er than a bed and a win­dow — this will improve the cir­cu­la­tion of fresh air, mak­ing it eas­i­er for the sleep­er to breathe.

It is impor­tant to choose the right col­ors for walls and ceil­ings — red, black and heavy cur­tains can affect the sub­con­scious, reduc­ing the qual­i­ty of a night’s rest, and even dri­ve you into depres­sion. Soft, light and calm col­ors are con­sid­ered ide­al for the bed­room. Beige, blue or green­ish, blur­ry and not sat­u­rat­ed shades of the walls will be suit­able.

Freedom of breathing: creating a microclimate

In order for breath­ing dur­ing sleep to be as free as pos­si­ble, and the body to be sat­u­rat­ed with oxy­gen, it is nec­es­sary to cre­ate spe­cial con­di­tions for the bed­room. The cool­ness and humid­i­ty of the air is impor­tant so that dur­ing breath­ing the mucous mem­branes do not dry out, and ede­ma or crusts do not form in the nasal cav­i­ty. This can be achieved by ven­ti­la­tion and the use of air humid­i­fiers, and in the warm sea­son it is advis­able to sleep with an open win­dow (if the house is far from high­ways and noise).

The brain does not stop work­ing dur­ing sleep, active­ly assim­i­lat­ing and sys­tem­atiz­ing the infor­ma­tion received dur­ing the day, it needs a lot of oxy­gen to work. With dif­fi­cul­ty in nasal breath­ing, the pres­ence of snor­ing with noc­tur­nal apnea, the oxy­gen sup­ply is reduced by 40–60% of the norm, as a result of which the qual­i­ty of sleep suf­fers.

Choosing a bed and bed linen: allergy prevention

No less impor­tant is com­fort and con­ve­nience, the safe­ty of the bed and bed linen. Feath­er pil­lows, cot­ton mat­tress­es can pro­voke aller­gies in pre­dis­posed peo­ple (asth­ma attacks, bron­chi­tis), which is asso­ci­at­ed with the pres­ence of fluff, feath­ers or micromites, dust par­ti­cles. To pre­vent aller­gies, it is rec­om­mend­ed to replace pil­lows, mat­tress­es and blan­kets with hypoal­ler­genic, syn­thet­ic mate­ri­als. In addi­tion, aller­gies can be pro­voked by the dyes that the bed linen is treat­ed with — it must be washed before the first use. But the laun­dry deter­gents them­selves (pow­der or con­di­tion­er), when in con­tact with the skin and res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem, mucous mem­branes, can be aller­gy provo­ca­teurs. There­fore, when wash­ing clothes, it is nec­es­sary to thor­ough­ly rinse them, and peo­ple who already have aller­gies should use hypoal­ler­genic laun­dry deter­gents and change the bed at least twice a week.

The bed itself should be made of high-qual­i­ty and safe mate­ri­als — wood boards or plas­tic parts can be sources of harm­ful volatile com­pounds. Beds made of nat­ur­al sol­id wood or met­al are pre­ferred. In order for the rest to be com­plete and com­fort­able, you need a good mat­tress — hard, which does not allow the spine to bend much dur­ing sleep.

You should not use the bed as a work area or a place for read­ing, watch­ing TV — it should be only for sleep­ing.