Mr. Zhang is the owner of a small company, he usually lives alone in a rented house, for convenience, Mr. Zhang has been covering the duvet he bought, but because the factory is not profitable, Mr. Zhang's sleep has become very poor, and he sleeps for three or four hours a day at most.
Some time ago, on New Year's Day, Mr. Zhang went back to his hometown in the north and lived with his parents for a few days.
Unexpectedly, after Mr. Zhang returned home, his sleep was obviously much better, and he could always sleep for seven or eight hours. Not only that, for the first time, Mr. Zhang felt that the big quilt was so comfortable, much more comfortable than the down quilt he bought at a high price.
Could it be that sleep duration really has such a big impact on health? Will the difference in quilts affect sleep?
1. One of the most important things in life is sleep! Sleep less, get sicker?
It is understood that adults need at least 7~8 hours of sleep per day, while minors need 8~9 hours of sleep. It seems that sleep deprivation will not affect us much, but in the long run, its subtle side effects will still cause a lot of burden on our body.
1. Affects the brain's thinking
Studies have found that the creative thinking and problem-solving insights that the human brain uses can be cultivated, and sleep is a good time to develop these two abilities. One thing we want to be clear about is that deep sleep and memory processing are closely related. In other words, if the brain wants to store memories, it must first reconstruct the memories so that creative thinking can be enhanced.
If you don't get enough sleep for a long time, it will naturally affect your brain's memory and the cultivation of creative thinking.
Lowers immunity
In addition to these two special abilities of the brain, almost all the immune cells in the body of the human body are also proliferated during sleep, so sleeping less means that our immune cells proliferate slowly, which is naturally not conducive to the enhancement of immune function, and lack of sleep for a long time may be easy to breed various diseases.
Causes obesity
In addition, lack of sleep can cause a decrease in leptin secretion in the body.
Leptin leptin can help us become thinner, its role is to help us break down lipids and reduce appetite, so too little leptin secretion will only lead to an increase in our appetite, fat accumulation, and natural easy to become fat.
Not good for skin health
We always say that we sleep less and have poor complexion, but it is not unreasonable. Lack of sleep can cause stagnation of skin capillaries, hindering blood circulation, preventing skin cells from getting adequate nutrients and producing "toxins" that are not easily excreted.
Therefore, people who sleep less will have their skin's metabolism slowed down, which is naturally not conducive to maintaining their complexion.
So since sleep is so important, how can we improve the quality of sleep?
2. The latest research shows that covering a thick quilt of about 7kg can significantly improve sleep!
In October 2022, a group of researchers in Sweden found that sleeping with a weighted quilt will increase the release of melatonin and help us sleep better.
The study involved 26 participants who were asked to sleep covered with quilts of different weights, a thick quilt of 12.2% of their body weight and a light quilt of 2.4%. In addition, saliva samples were collected from all participants to measure their hormone secretion, including melatonin, oxytocin, and cortisol.
After statistics, the researchers found that:
Melatonin rose by an average of 5.8 directly between 10 and 11 p.m. for those covered with a thin quilt, while melatonin rose by an average of 6.6 over the same time period for participants covered with a large thick quilt.
In contrast, people with thick quilts secreted significantly more melatonin.
For humans, melatonin is a hormone naturally secreted by the brain, which can help us sleep and play a significant anti-anxiety role, so the more melatonin secretion at night, the easier it is for us to enter a state of deep sleep, and the less likely it is to wake up in the middle of the night.
It is worth noting that participants covered with thick quilts, within only one month of the experiment, the researchers found:
• In 42.2% of participants, insomnia was significantly improved.
When followed up for more than one year, 78 percent of these participants had significantly improved sleep quality and significantly reduced depression and anxiety. It can be seen that although it sounds amazing, covering us with a thick quilt really helps us improve the quality of sleep!
Specifically, it may be because the quilt becomes heavier when it becomes thicker, so that the pressure on our body increases. The skin gets more sensory information, which is then transmitted through the spinal nerves to the nucleus of the solitary tract in the brain, which secretes small cell oxytocin, which helps us feel happier and quieter.
In addition, the nucleus of the solitary tract is connected to the pineal gland, which may also be affected, releasing more melatonin.
So on this cold day, if you can't sleep well at night, you can try to cover some thick quilts, because it brings you not only a solid feeling, but also more melatonin.
3. How to improve the quality of sleep? Do a good job before going to bed
Of course, if you want to maintain a good quality of sleep, it is not enough to "sharpen your tools first", have you done the preparation before going to bed?
1. Reduce the amount of time you spend looking at electronics
Electronic products are a good helper to delight our minds, but watching too many mobile phones before going to bed, especially more exciting things such as TV series, novels and short videos, can easily excite our brains, thereby interfering with the secretion of melatonin, which is not conducive to our sleep.
And the blue light radiation emitted by electronic products may affect the functioning of our brains, reduce sleep drive, and thus affect sleep.
2. Don't take too long a nap
Some scholars say that there is an upper limit to how much sleep a person can drive in a day. This means that if we sleep too much during the day, we will inevitably consume more sleep drive, making us less motivated to sleep at night.
Therefore, napping is more of a nap, you can sleep within an hour every day, preferably about half an hour! If you take too long a nap in the afternoon, you may not be able to sleep at night.
3. Some small Xi before bedtime
According to the Chinese medicine, there are many acupuncture points on the head, so combing your hair before going to bed may be a good way to massage and stimulate the acupuncture points on the head, promote blood circulation in the head, and reduce brain fatigue. In addition to this, you can also try stretching your limbs before bed.
Before going to bed, we can lie in bed and stretch our limbs as much as possible, which can help more blood flow back into the brain, providing the brain with abundant blood and oxygen, and promoting more melatonin secretion.
4. Drink less coffee
For some people, they are very sensitive to caffeine, and even a little caffeine intake will be extremely active, because caffeine can interfere with the formation of sleep drives, stimulate cranial nerves, and thus bring active thinking to sensitive people.
Therefore, it is best for this group of people not to consume caffeine for six hours before bedtime, including strong tea and coffee.
bibliography
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[3] Zhang Zhihong. Improving sleep quality and promoting physical and mental health [J]. Jiangxi Education, 2023
[4] Chen Bing. Seven Actions to Improve Sleep Quality [J]. New Long March (Party Building Edition), 2019,