We All Need Sleep

  • Terri Newman

We all need sleep to rejuvenate our brains and our body.  For the brain it’s all about memory consolidation, creativity, detoxification, mood re-orientation and processing our emotions.  For our body it’s all about rejuvenation and growth.  As humans, we are unique, being the only animal that sleeps in 7-to-8-hour blocks.

Research suggests that as adults we need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night.   New-borns require on average 14-17 hours sleep, infants 12-15, toddlers 11-14, pre-schoolers 10-13, school age 9-11, teens 8-10, young adults and adults 7-9 hours, and older adults 7-8 hours sleep per day.

What we do when asleep, is sleep in 90-minute cycles throughout the night, each cycle takes us through four stages, and we need 5 cycles of sleep every day for optimal health.  What are these stages?:

Stage 1 is light sleep or the drifting off stage which takes up about 5% of our sleep time

Stage 2 where you are in light sleep takes up to 45-50% of our sleep time and this stage helps with the days information processing and is the first stage where we feel asleep.

Stage 3 & 4 is deep sleep which takes up 20% of our sleep time and this is when growth hormones are produced to help restore our body.  If you wake up while in deep sleep you feel really groggy, which tends to decrease with age.

The REM stage takes up a further 20-25% of our sleep time and this is when we dream the most.  This stage helps with memory coordination and creativity.  It restores the mind, which enables us to learn complex tasks.  This stage is vital, especially for child development.

In REM sleep our dreams play a hugely significant role in our emotional health.  Dreams help us to replay the day’s emotional content, allowing us to process and come to terms with any difficulties and any trauma we experience throughout the day.  It helps refresh our emotional balance mechanism and supports our creative thinking and problem-solving abilities.  Hence the saying “let’s sleep on it tonight”.  This plays a hugely significant role for those suffering from depression or PTSD.

Detoxification is essential as our brains use up to 25% of our body’s energy, which produces a lot of toxins of which 90% are detoxified during sleep.  There is strong evidence of association between poor sleep and mental illnesses, and adults who don’t get enough sleep tend to develop Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.  Adults with Dementia and Alzheimer symptoms find these symptoms reduce when they get more sleep.

Our inherited sleep traits or Chronotypes are either “Morning Lark” or “Night Owl”.  This determines when we prefer to go to sleep at night and when we rise in the morning, and how much sleep we need individually.  Remembering we sleep in 90-minute cycles, an adult needs 5 cycles of sleep a night which equates to 7.5 hours of sleep.  Going to bed sometime between 8pm and midnight is regarded as the window which we can optimise our sleep, getting the correct balance of REM and non-REM sleep.

When you can wake without an alarm, you know you have had enough sleep.  Always aim at waking up at the end of a cycle, so to get up at 7am for work count back 5 cycles or 7.5 hours.  Keep adjusting until you can wake up without an alarm and repeat the same sleep and wake times 7 days a week.

Good sleep hygiene starts first thing in the morning by opening the curtains straight away, sunlight gets cortisol going in your body.  No tech until after breakfast if possible and have a good breakfast – don’t skip it (unless of course you are an intermittent faster like me).  Exercise preferably outside to get your intake of Vitamin D, do morning mediation, affirmations, and positive visualisation to set the tone of the day.  Drink water first thing, saving your caffeine for the morning lull, and remember to take breaks throughout the day to avoid getting wired.  If you need a power nap to catch up on lost sleep, the best time to nap is between 1pm and 3pm, with a short nap time of 20-30 minutes.

Successful sleep hygiene at night is based on creating a regular (relaxing) routine.  Put your clothes out for work the next day.  Do relaxation exercises or mediation, take a bath or shower, and brush your teeth.  Read a book and tell your brain that sleep is on its way.

Ultimately, it’s about technology and stress, make sure you switch off all technology at least one hour before bed.  Get your bedroom right with light, temperature, sound, de-clutter, clean and fresh.  Having a big bed to sleep in, especially if you are sharing is essential as is finding your ideal sleep position.  Make sure that the bedroom is for sleep and sex only (no work and no arguing).

Food affects sleep and sleep affects food.  Eat a varied Mediterranean diet with vitamins and minerals.  Vitamin D rich foods include fatty fish (salmon, sardines, tuna), egg yolk, cheese, beef and liver.  Magnesium rich foods like spinach, chard and other dark leafy green vegetables, nuts (especially almonds), seeds (pumpkin), dried fruit, avocados, beans, figs, whole grains and fish.  And Vitamin B rich foods, fish, raw garlic, pistachio nuts, whole grains, meat (poultry and pork), vegetables, eggs and soya.

Gut bacteria need their sleep too, and massively influences your sleep.  Our digestive system is our second brain and gut bacteria have 90-minute sleep cycles as well.  When we don’t sleep our gut bacteria increases energy absorption, eating pro-biotics has been shown to improve sleep quality.  Jet lag wipes out our good bacteria, and they are replaced with those of a diabetic biome.

Things to do (and don’t do) at night:

Don’t eat too late
Avoid blue light
Don’t drink too much alcohol (affects our REM sleep)
Avoid caffeine - Try Valerian Tea
Don’t turn on bathroom light at night (get a night light)
If you can’t sleep within 20 minutes, get out of the bedroom
Do breathing techniques 4-7-8 breathing is good
Contract and relax your body muscles
Meditate
Try not to close your eyes and don’t count sheep

Typical sleep issues:

Outside of genuine sleep disorders such as Sleep Apnoea, sleep is mainly a lifestyle and stress/time management issue
Lifestyle changes are typically to stop drinking coffee in the day, to cut out using alcohol at night, exercise more and eat better food
Sleep apnoea, where you wake up multiple times often breathless – you need to see your GP.  Check out your family sleep history, including use of sleep medications

Trauma – one off events can be the epicentre in a number of cases
Poor sleep education and boundaries, often handed down from grandparent to parent to children.  Poor tech education and boundaries handed down from parent to child.
Getting all your needs met is key to get a balanced lifestyle and a balanced daily routine including me-time
Ultimately “I am not enough” sits underneath almost all sleep issues
Health & Happiness is not prioritised or even considered as a goal for daily living

If you or someone you know are having sleep issues, it pays to talk to someone who can help.  As a Rapid Transformational Therapist, I help people get to the root cause of their sleeping issues, look at the beliefs attached to those issues, then replace them with better beliefs.

Experience life-changing transformation in three easy steps:

1.  Book a FREE No Obligation discovery call – Let’s talk about what you really want to achieve and find out how RTT can help www.calendly.com/terrinewmancoaching  
2.  Attend your RTT session – And follow up with your unique daily RTT recording for the next 21 days to get faster results
3.  Step out and follow your dreams – Rapid Transformational Therapy gets to the root of the issue so you can get on with life!

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