Where do people spend the longest time in their lives?
The answer is – the bed.
The one thing that anyone spends the most time and most important in their life is sleeping.
However, according to the 2019 China Sleep Index Report, the average Chinese sleep time is more than 12 o'clock at night, and 30% of them sleep less than 6 hours a day. Sleeping well has become the most difficult self-discipline to achieve.
Today, we're going to talk about "sleeping well."
The sleep you owe is like a debt, and the larger the amount, the higher the interest.
The most important mission of sleep is to give the brain and body a rest. If a person is sleep deprived for a long time, like a person with a high debt, unable to repay, it will eventually lead to bankruptcy. The interest generated by sleep debt, the harm is obvious, and it is very likely to make our body "bankrupt".
First of all, staying up late can make it ugly. Staying up late darkens your complexion and accelerates aging. The moisture in the skin is mainly affected by sex hormones and growth hormones that are closely related to sleep, so sleep helps to improve the water retention in the skin.
Second, staying up late can be silly. Staying up late will make your memory, concentration decline, and your thinking is not agile. At the same time, only by sleeping can the brain expel all waste products along the blood vessels through the "cerebrospinal fluid". These wastes contain the causes of Alzheimer's disease, which can easily build up in the body if sleep is restricted. So, not sleeping well can really make you stupid.
Third, staying up late will get sick. Immunity is related to hormones, and one of the missions of sleep is to regulate the balance of hormones. If you don't sleep well, the hormone balance in the body will be destroyed, immunity will decline, and immunity-related diseases will follow. Such as colds, allergies, rheumatism, cancer, etc.
Fourth, the sleep lost by staying up late cannot be made up. Damage caused by staying up late will continue to accumulate. Staying up late at night and catching up on sleep during the day, although it can alleviate the fatigue of the body, but the damage caused to nerves, endocrine, blood vessels, etc. cannot be made up, but will aggravate the vicious circle.
So, we stay up late, and it's the body that stays up. Sleeping well is the best health for yourself.
Golden 90-minute rule: Sleep quality is determined by the 90 minutes of sleep in the early stages of sleep
Have you had this experience? A wave of drowsiness struck, and I wanted to go to bed immediately, but after staying up for a while, I found that I couldn't sleep at all.
The Stanford Efficient Sleep Act tells us, "Don't ignore the initial sleepiness." Obviously sleepy but insist on not sleeping, after which it is difficult to enter a state of deep sleep, and no matter how long you sleep, you will not have a good quality of sleep. ”
Types of sleep, including REM sleep (REM sleep) and non-REM sleep (non-REM sleep). During the process of sleeping, these two sleep states will alternate and recur.
Immediately after falling asleep, non-REM sleep is ushered in. In particular, the first 90 minutes of non-REM sleep are the deepest sleep in the whole process of sleep. Usually, non-REM sleep and REM sleep occur four or five times repeatedly. But with the dawn, the REM sleep will become longer, and the non-REM sleep state will gradually become shallower, and the duration will gradually become shorter.
Scientists have done sleep experiments, and if sleep is blocked in the first 90 minutes, subsequent sleep will be disrupted. Therefore, when you are sleepy, not going to sleep immediately is equivalent to the golden ninety minutes of sleep being disturbed, so that you can not continue to sleep. It can be seen that these 90 minutes are the indispensable and most important basis for sleep.
In summary, the key to sleeping well is how to deepen the initial non-REM sleep. If you can maintain a deep sleep during this time, the subsequent sleep will become very regular. So the first 90 minutes are also called the golden 90 minutes.
Regulates body temperature and brain for optimal sleep
How do you put yourself to sleep as quickly as possible and achieve deep sleep?
If you are a regular person with a regular schedule, then congratulations! Maintaining a fixed bedtime and wake-up time (especially bedtime) is a very effective method.
However, there are also people who cannot fall asleep on time. Here are two sleep switches that can help you fall asleep: body temperature and brain.
The Stanford Efficient Sleep Method tells us that when the gap between body temperature and body surface temperature is narrowed, people are more likely to fall asleep. So we can take the following approach:
(1) Bathe 90 minutes before falling asleep, let the body temperature drop, the gap between the body surface temperature gradually narrows, and then fall asleep smoothly.
(2) Foot bath (foot soaking) When bathing every day is not realistic, you can improve blood circulation in the feet by soaking your feet, promote the release of heat, and narrow the gap between the temperature in the body and the temperature on the surface of the body.
(3) Suitable room temperature Since the temperature that each person adapts to is different, it is impossible to give a standard temperature. You can set it according to your own needs. This point is easy for us modern people to solve, you can choose the energy-saving and environmentally friendly air conditioner on the market, and set it to sleep mode when sleeping.
So how do you get your brain to turn on sleep mode? It's the law of monotony.
Driving on the highway is prone to drowsiness, and one of the reasons is that the scenery in front of you is unchanged.
In a monotonous situation, the brain is easier to empty, do not think about any problems, and at the same time feel bored, easy to sleepy.
So before going to bed, we must consciously create this monotonous and boring atmosphere. Don't watch variety shows that can make people excited, and don't chase dramas with big emotional ups and downs and suspenseful plots. Listen to some soothing music or read some paper books. In short, the more boring it is for you at this time, the better.
Write at the end
1/3 of a person's life is spent in darkness, but it determines the remaining 2/3.
A person who knows how to sleep well is taking good care of his body and improving his quality of life.
May we all sleep well, live well, and enjoy a broader and more abundant life.