Sleep Well

By Tomás James Clarke

Man spends on average a third of his life sleeping. But sleeping does not mean completely cutting the bridges with reality or "turning us off", on the contrary, our sleep is an active phenomenon that fulfills many important functions in the preservation of our cognitive functions, our immune competence, cardiovascular protection, and in the tissue repair.

The importance of night rest and the problems that can reduce the quality of sleep and, consequently, of life, are fundamental issues. In fact, sleep disorders can have a strong impact on the daily life of those who suffer from them, causing chronic fatigue, loss of attention, and increased irritability and depressive emotional states, leading, in the long run, to more serious health problems.

This health manual will provide you with knowledge about the latest studies on sleep, tips for getting quality sleep, and how to combat nightmares and use them as allies. You will find a guide on how to mitigate annoying snoring, and especially, how to manipulate dreams to experience them with the fantasies that we dare to imagine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ediciones Afrodita
• Release date: Apr 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215606667

Book preview

Sleep well.

control your dreams

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Tomás James Clarke

Ediciones Afrodita

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Topics:

Chap.1 The importance of sleeping well

Chap.2 Tips for falling asleep

Chap.3 Fight against snoring

Chap.4 Nightmares

Chap.5 What are dreams?

Chap.6 Understanding and manipulating dreams

Chapter 1

The importance

of sleeping well

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Important facts about sleep

1. The eight hours of sleep

We often hear that you need to sleep eight hours a day. This recommendation is given by national health organizations around the world, from the British NHS to the American National Sleep Foundation. But where does this advice really come from?

Studies conducted in different countries to determine how often diseases affect different populations reach the same conclusion: people who suffer from sleep deprivation, like those who sleep too much, are more susceptible to multiple diseases and have a longer life. shorter mean.

However, it is difficult to say whether sleep disorders are the cause of the diseases or vice versa, a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Too little sleep usually means less than six hours, and too much sleep is more than nine to ten hours.

It is generally recommended that children who have not reached puberty sleep at night until 11 o'clock, and babies - up to 18 hours a day. Adolescents' nightly sleep is considered to be up to 10 hours.

Shane O'Mara, Professor of Experimental Brain Research at Trinity College Dublin, says that while it's hard to say definitively whether lack of sleep is a cause or a consequence of poor health, the two influence each other.

For example, people who do not pay enough attention to physical exercises sleep worse, so fatigue increases, and as a result, they have no energy left to play sports, etc.

We know that scientists have time and again linked chronic sleep deprivation (an hour or two of sleep deprivation over a long period of time) to poor health: You don't have to stay awake for days at a time to notice the negative effects of deprivation of dream

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2. What happens to the body when you don't get enough sleep?

Lack of sleep can lead to a number of diseases.

Findings from 153 studies involving more than five million people clearly link poor sleep to diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and obesity.

Studies have shown that a lack of sleep for a few nights in a row can send a healthy person into a prediabetic state. Moderate sleep deprivation reduces the body's ability to control blood glucose levels.

Lack of sleep reduces the effectiveness of vaccines, and lack of sleep has a devastating effect on immunity, making us vulnerable to infections.

In one study, participants who slept less than seven hours were three times more likely to develop colds than those who slept seven hours or more.

The body of sleep-deprived people produces excessive amounts of ghrelin, the hormone responsible for feelings of hunger, and insufficient amounts of leptin, the hormone that causes satiety and therefore increases the risk of obesity.

Reminder for those who wish to sleep well: Too much sleep and too little sleep: are two paths to an early grave.

Sleep deprivation has also been associated with reduced brain activity and even, in the long term, with dementia.

Toxic substances accumulate in the brain during the day and are eliminated during sleep. If you don't get enough sleep, your condition resembles a mild concussion.

The impact of sleeping too much is less understood, but it is also known to be associated with a number of disorders, including brain damage in older people.

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3. Different types of sleep help the body recover

Our sleep consists of cycles that are divided into several stages. Each cycle lasts 60 to 100 minutes. Each stage plays a role in the numerous processes that occur in our bodies while we sleep.

The first stage of each cycle is a sleepy, relaxed state between wakefulness and sleep. Breathing slows, muscles relax, and the pulse slows.

The second is a slightly deeper sleep, during which you can sleep, but at the same time, you consider yourself awake.

The third stage is deep sleep, when it is very difficult to wake up, any activity in the body at this time is at a minimum level.

The second and third stages enter the phase of slow sleep, usually at this time the person does not dream.

After deep sleep, we return to the second stage for a few minutes, then move on to REM sleep, which is often accompanied by dreams.

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4. Shift workers with sleep disorders are more likely to get sick

Shift work can cause many health problems. Researchers have found that those who work shifts and get too little sleep at the wrong times may be at higher risk of developing diabetes and obesity.

Shift workers are significantly more likely to rate their health as poor or fair, a 2013 NHS study found.

The researchers also found that people in this group are much more likely to have chronic illnesses than those who work standard hours.

Shift workers are much more likely to miss work due to illness, statistics show.

The gap between those who perform physical and mental work is even greater, and, in addition, lack of sleep seems to affect those who lead a sedentary lifestyle more.

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5. Is sleep deprivation a modern pandemic?

Judging by media reports, you might think we're in the grip of an epidemic of sleep deprivation. But has sleep deprivation really increased?

A study in 15 countries gave a very mixed picture. In six countries, scientists recorded a decrease in sleep duration, in seven - an increase and two more countries gave conflicting results.

There is much evidence that, in recent generations, the duration of sleep has changed little. However, if you ask people how they rate their lack of sleep, a different picture emerges.

So