Why sleep is SO important

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Hello everyone and welcome to the first instalment of our new mini series – all on the topic of sleep!

Regular readers will know just how obsessed I am with sleep. With sleeping, not sleeping, children not sleeping and therefore keeping us awake – the list goes on! The bottom line is – sleep is important. This is why I’m excited to launch our new Sleep Series with Sleep Consultant Samantha Sadighi of Easy Sleep Solutions. From baby sleep issues, right the way up to adult insomnia, we will cover it all in our Sleep Sessions series.

Before we get on to age by age deep dives looking at sleep across the family, we wanted to kick things off in our first installment with a wider look at why sleep is important. So let us begin…

Why sleep is important

We all know that exercise and what we eat are important in keeping us healthy, but there’s something else that’s just as important (and impacts heavily on both of these), which so many of us neglect…SLEEP!

We all do it, seemingly some better than others.  Certainly here in the UK, it’s suggested that as many as two-thirds of adults suffer with their sleep at some point in their lives.  Many of whom just accept it.  And as for our children not sleeping, well, that’s just part and part of being a parent, isn’t it? WRONG!  It doesn’t have to be like that!

I’m a real believer that knowledge is power, so over the next few weeks I’m going to talk a little about how our sleep changes and evolves as we age, starting from newborns right up to adults.

But first, I’m going to talk about the mechanics of sleep, which applies to us whatever our age.

The four stages of sleep

Generally, we scroll through four stages of sleep, which for adults lasts about 90 minutes, which is called one sleep cycle.  We start (not surprisingly) at Stage 1, which is the lightest stage of sleep.  This is the one where if you’re nodding off on the couch and your other half prods you, you would swear blind you hadn’t been asleep (although you really had). 

We then seamlessly slip into Stage 2.  This is still a light phase, but continuing to use the nodding off in front of the TV analogy, if you were poked this time, you would admit you had been asleep.  Generally, this is the stage we spend the most time in.

Then comes stage 3, also known as slow-wave sleep or deep sleep.  This is where our brains and bodies really rest – our heart and breathing rate become even slower as too do our brain waves (hence ‘slow-wave sleep’).  When we get enough of this sleep, that’s when we feel refreshed in the morning.  The more sleep-deprived we are, not only will we fall asleep quicker, we’ll also plunge into deep sleep quicker too, because our minds and bodies are craving the restorative properties we gain from it.

Stage 4 comes next, which is also called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) or Dream Sleep.  Rather than the slow brain waves from Stage 3, in this stage our brain waves look closer to those when we are awake.  It’s thought that this stage helps us consolidate what we have learnt and even emotionally vent to ourselves.   Our eyes dart quickly behind our closed eyelids while our muscles are almost paralysed to stop us acting out our dreams.  That’s not to say we don’t dream in other stages of sleep, but the majority of our dreaming is done right here.

Although, as I’ve already mentioned, we scroll through these stages throughout the night, the balance of the stages is slightly skewed.  So earlier in the night, we get more deep sleep (or stage 3) compared to REM sleep (or stage 4).  Then about half way through our slumber the scales tip and we start having more REM sleep compared to deep sleep.  This can explain why it’s harder to wake in the middle of the night (cue the groggy walk to a crying child) and we’re more likely to remember our dreams if we wake in the early hours.

So that’s the basics on what’s happening to our minds and bodies while we sleep, what about the actual urge to sleep?  As you may (or may not) know, our natural body clock (AKA our circadian rhythm) helps control when we feel sleepy and when we feel most awake.  

Hormones and sleep

The two main hormones at play here are melatonin (our sleepy hormone) and cortisol (which perks us up, but is also our stress hormone).  You can think of melatonin as a nice warm cup of Cocoa and Cortisol as an espresso!  Ideally as one is high, the other wants to be low.  Often though (especially with children), this balance becomes out of sync causing issues with daytime and/or nighttime sleep.

Cortisol is approaching its highest in the morning, meaning (if we’ve slept well) we wake refreshed and ready for the day.  Melatonin however wants to be highest approaching bedtime (regardless of our age).  Our exposure to daylight is a huge factor with our melatonin production. 

Thinking about when we used to be cave dwellers, our only daylight or bright light exposure would have been during the day.  So our bodies have evolved to expect that, and not bright light (from screens etc) once it’s dark outside.  So essentially, the more bright light we get during the day (preferably from outside) the better our melatonin production, so the better we’ll sleep at night.

Now you know the basics

… we will be following up with our stage by stage instalments – the first of which will be newborn sleep. Be sure to subscribe to stay tuned for the next in our Sleep Sessions series!

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8 comments

  1. Once I’m asleep I tend to stay asleep, its getting off to sleep that dismay problem.

  2. Sleep is so important for both mental and physically wellbeing – I really need to work on getting more sleep as my sleep patterns have gone out the window over the past year

    Laura x

  3. What a great idea to do a sleep series, thank you! Like how simply you’ve explained the sleep stages 🙂

  4. Great idea to do sleep series sleep is so vital for both physical and mental wellbeing

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