Sleep Secrets

Sleep requirements vary from individual to individual and range from as few as four hours to even nine or ten hours per day. However, it is important to understand that the quality of sleep is perhaps more important than the number of hours of sleep. One can sleep for ten hours and yet feel morose and weary afterwards, whereas someone who enjoys as little as four hours of good sleep can feel greatly refreshed upon waking up. The following tips can aid in improving the quality of your sleep.

1)    Set up and stick to a sleep schedule. If possible, also establish and maintain a “sleep ritual” before bedtime. Going to bed and waking up the next morning, at the same time each day is an excellent way to keep the body’s in-built sleep rhythm toned and in good condition. The sleep ritual can include performing a simple sequence of activities that condition the brain and body to feel sleepy before finally going to bed.
2)    Having a slightly lower body temperature, along with moderate levels of physical exhaustion helps you swiftly fall asleep without much tossing and turning in bed. A good way to achieve this would be to follow a short twenty or thirty minute exercise regimen somewhere in the late afternoon. During exercise, body temperature is elevated but afterwards, the relaxation period begins and by bedtime the body temperature falls off to a point that helps in sleep induction.
3)    A warm bath before going to bed can work wonders to relax the body. Adding a few drops of certain aromatics oils to the water can provide additional relaxation. An example of such oils is Lavender oil that has known calming effects.
4)    Bedtime reading is another useful aid to falling asleep gently. The material can be stories or articles that do not elicit too much thinking. Magazine material with plenty of serene imagery or descriptions of natural scenery, etc… make apropos bedtime reading.
5)    Doing away with foodstuff that can potentially cause upset stomachs is advisable. Specifically, hot and spicy foodstuff, and those with plenty of oil should be avoided as such food items can give rise to severe heartburns and stomachaches during the night.
6)    Drinking a glass of warm milk before going to sleep is recommendable for most people. Milk contains an amino acid called tryptophan that is known to promote sleep.
7)    For the majority of us, listening to soft music, without the vocal has a relaxing effect, which in turn promotes the process of falling asleep.
8)    Shutting off arrhythmic and intense signals that stimulate our sense organs helps us in enjoying better sleep. Shrill sounds, loud noises, excessive lighting, strong or noisome smells, a badly made bed, etc… are things to be avoided in the sleeping area.
9)    Excessive fluid intake prior to going to bed should be done away with. Drinking plenty of fluid before taking to bed, will, during the course of the night cause a full bladder, which in turn will trigger strong urges to urinate that can disrupt sleep.
10)    Abstaining from alcohol consumption before bedtime is recommended. Although alcohol can help a person fall asleep rather abruptly, it can give rise to bouts of wakefulness during the night and cause disturbed sleep.

Sleep is an essential task in every person’s life. There are many things to discuss about caffeine in particular. You can find both the positive and negative effects of caffeine in your daily life. This drug has got something to do with your sleep.

Caffeine is a drug, which becomes addictive when used regularly. It alters the brain’s natural state of a person. It really affected nearly 90% of the Americans as per the survey. How Caffeine work is, it closes the blood vessels in the brain enabling the brain and body not to sleep. It causes the release of adrenaline into the human body so that the body remains alert and active and manipulates the dopamine production in the brain of a person so that he experience a high temperature.

A Pure Form of Caffeine

Caffeine is commonly found in its natural state in many plants such as coffee beans, tealeaves, and cocoa nuts. You can find the pure form of caffeine in its white, bitter, crystalline powder blended from the decaffeinating process of tea and coffee. Some of the products in which caffeine generally comes are: milk chocolate, colas, tea, coffee, pain relievers and etc

Those who are regular users of caffeine should consume it daily otherwise, they may suffer from disorders such as fatigue, irritability, depression, jumpiness, tremors, deprivation of deep sleep and headaches when the blood vessels in the brain dilates. In some cases, Prominent Doctor’s suggest to use this drug medicinally because of its positive effects on a person’s life. It is mostly used as a cardiac stimulant.

Finding Caffeine in Pain Relievers

Why most people rely on pain relievers when they get headache or any other pain in their body? Pain relievers generally contain caffeine, which allows the brain blood vessels to constrict thereby easing the pain. The short-term side effects arising from the consumption of caffeine include renewed energy, alertness, and pleasure. Though there exists long-term side effects with the consumption of caffeine, still they are not life threatening.

Caffeine is not only the single aspect, which affects your sleep, but your daily activities are also responsible for your sleep disorder. If you take too much of alcohol also, you may get sleep problem. You need to carefully monitor your daily diet, exercise patters, personal habits, sleeping environment and lifestyles, etc. These all factors will be responsible in a person’s life as to which is causing him sleep apnea.

We all agree that sleep is a natural and important part of our life. We also agree over the fact that over-sleeping as well as sleep deprivation has a negative influence on our physical and mental health. However, the point on which we do not frequently agree upon is the question of “How much sleep do we really need?” Although a vast amount of research has been carried out on the subject, the reports of such studies have been at times been somewhat confusing and inconclusive. But, there is reason to believe that eight hours of sound sleep seems to be the magical number for the typical adult.
Sleep researchers and clinicians sometimes divide people into “Short sleepers” and “Long sleepers” with the majority falling somewhere in between these two categories. People who require less than six hours of sleep per night are dubbed short sleepers and those who require about nine hours of sleep are termed long sleepers.
As most of us know, sleep requirements vary from person to person and there are some well studied factors that contribute to this variation. A well known factor is the age of a person. Newborns and infants typically require a lot of sleep, anywhere between fourteen to sixteen hours a day. Several studies have indicated that the average, active teenager requires about nine hours of sleep during the night. In the case of adults, eight hours of sleep per twenty-four hours is the recommended number, going by a number of research reports. Scientific studies that have examined the sleep requirements of older people (above sixty-five years of age), conclude that although the elderly require around eight hours of sleep, they enjoy only light sleep and their periods of deep sleep are reduced.
Apart from age, sleep requirements also depend on genetic factors as well as on the quality of sleep. In the context of this discussion, the concept of “sleep debt” springs into prominence. For instance, if a person who requires eight hours of sleep per day, manages to sleep only seven hours for two consecutive days, then on the third day he ends up a sleep deficit (or debt) of two hours. By sleeping ten hours that night, he can successfully close the sleep debt of two hours. Many people who incur daily sleep debts carry it forward to the week-end when they sleep for longer periods to effectively “pay off” the debt.
How does one know if he or she is incurring a sleep deficit? Sleep deprivation can cause a variety of signs some of which are explicit (like yawning frequently) while others are implicit (such as reduced response times and subtly impaired cognitive function). The tell-tale signs that may be used to diagnose sleep deprivation include feeling tired and drowsy during the daytime, falling asleep for short periods during work, etc…It has also been argued that if a person constantly falls asleep within five minutes of going to bed, then he is most likely carrying a sleep deficit. Importantly, many studies have shown that chronically sleep deprived persons are at a greater risk of causing automobile accidents if they drive for long, continuous periods. Chronic lack of sleep, then, clearly causes reduced levels of alertness!
Like any other basic necessity in life, you can have too less or too much of a good thing. It is important to know one’s own sleep requirements and adjust one’s lifestyle so that chronic sleep deprivation and over-sleeping are avoided.

Whenever we speak or think of sleep, we immediately conjure up images of lying down on a comfortable bed with our eyes closed. Indeed, to most people, closed eyes embody one of the hallmarks of falling asleep. However, it may come as a surprise to many to know that it is certainly possible to rest and sometimes even fall asleep with our eyes open. The scientific term for sleeping with eyes open is Lagophthalmos. A small minority of children and newborns can fall into deep sleep without closing their eyelids.
People can be trained to rest without closing their eyes completely. Although, this is not equal to sleeping with open eyes, it certainly induces a calm and relaxed state and like sleep, greatly refreshes the mind and body. Before we discuss the technique of relaxing without the need to close our eyes, let’s examine the role of eyelids in the context of sleep. The major reason why we close our eyelids during sleep is to block intense visual stimulation and other disturbances that can take the form of visual signals. The secondary function of eyelids is to keep out potentially injurious foreign objects (such as insects) from damaging our eyes when we are asleep.
There is a very powerful method, a form of awareness meditation (sometimes known as mindfulness meditation) that one can use to relax deeply without closing our eyes. Although there are a number of slightly different ways to implement this form of meditation, a commonly practiced, accepted method is briefly described here.
In order to rest with our eyes open, we must first seek a comfortable position. Most people find it best to lie down and then meditate. After you have found a comfortable pose, you must try to relax every muscle in your body. Each part of the body, starting from the feet, can be visualized mentally and given powerful mental suggestion to relax. If you find that doing this is a little difficult, then try to focus on your own breathing. Take deep breaths and focus on the gentle sounds made during each inhalation and exhalation. This will have a calming effect. After your muscles have relaxed fully, focus your eyes on a single object. The key point to underscore here is that although you must keep your focus on an object, you should try not to think about that object. Instead, try to make your mind go blank. An alternative method is to lay back and quietly examine your own thoughts forming in your mind. Let the thoughts come in naturally, and try to get your mind not to focus on any single thought or idea.
There are some distinct advantages of relaxing deeply without closing one’s eyes. Firstly, short periods of relaxation, even as little as five minutes, can easily be achieved by this method whereas, if one goes to sleep, with eyes closed, awakening after five or ten minutes will have a negative impact on the mind. Resting without closing the eyelids has also been shown to reduce anxiety and work tension. It also refreshes the mind significantly without the need to fall asleep completely for extended periods.
As a last note it must be mentioned here that some very complicated hypnotic methods can also be used to relax with our eyes kept open.

Polyphasic Sleep

Used to describe some alternative patterns of sleep, Polyphasic sleep diminishes time of sleep to 2-6 daily hours to accomplish better sleep quality. This process can be fulfilled by dispersing sleep into brief naps of approximately 15 minutes to a half hour within a day, and in several deviations, a core period of sleep several hours per night.

The Adaptation of Polyphasic Sleep

Adapting to a schedule for Polyphasic sleep contains a physical and mental process can be quite thorny. The transition period is normally one to two weeks—referred to as the Uberman sleep. Thus, testers of an independent nature usually claim to endure no obvious decrease of alertness or cognition, although they achieve hours of sleep daily. However, Polyphasic sleep usually entails a strict schedule that makes it unattainable for many individuals. There has been minimal research of a scientific nature regarding Polyphasic sleep. Bloggers normally volunteer the information pertaining to the alternative sleep experience.

Traditional sleep—or Monophasic—has some stages, several which may be unnecessary in the proportions that occur organically. Those that support Polyphasic sleep feel that subsequent to undergoing sleep deprivation that’s regulated during the first adjustment duration, as the brain begins the necessary sleep stages more rapidly—known as a strategy of survival. Moreover, after the adaptation to Polyphasic sleep is acquired, according to theory a sustainable and comfortable sleeping equilibrium in naps. Boat racers, astronauts and military pilots in the United States and Canada have attempted similar techniques.

Adverse Effects of Polyphasic Sleep

It is believed by experts of Polyphasic sleep that the majority of tiredness disperses approximately 10 scheduled days, and it dissolves fully about 14 scheduled days. Nevertheless, self-testers of this scientific experiment usually inadvertently oversleep in an attempt to transform to a schedule for Polyphasic sleep, and as a consequence fail to completely adapt, or defer their modification.  Thus, they remain lethargic subsequent to the 14 scheduled days and the majority terminates the Polyphasic sleep experiment.

Polyphasic sleep doesn’t pertain to any specific schedule, but only refers to sleeping within 24 hours a multiple of times. The most popular kind of Polyphasic sleep is the Uberman sleep—in application, it’s also the strictest. The Uberman schedule requires 20-25 minutes of six naps each, which occurs about four hours apart in the course of a day. In regards to the solo long distance races on boats, Claudio Stampi advocates the scientific experiment to ensure maximum performance. However, Claudio doesn’t recommend Polyphasic sleep in a daily lifestyle. While several consider this experiment to be unsound due to the fact that there is very little brain control involved to ensure a switch from a customary pattern of biphasic sleep—or monophasic—to a system of multiple naps. They believe Polyphasic sleep endures an incessant adaptation period.

Of the multitude of factors that affect the quantity and quality of sleep, caffeine intake is one that merits serious discussion. The effects of caffeine on sleep have been well studied and we also know many of the underlying mechanisms behind caffeine’s biological effects. While caffeine has been hailed as an effective “pick me up” that helps to provide a sudden surge of mental vigor and alertness, it has also been called as an addictive drug by many. This colorless, flavorless chemical substance is present in a variety of natural and artificial foods and food products. Coffee beans, teal leaves and cocoa nuts constitute some natural sources of caffeine. Caffeine is also found in most cola brands.
Coffee, a typical cup of which contains around 75mg of caffeine, is the drink that has been used traditionally by those who want to stay awake during the night. The effects are attributed mainly to caffeine.
Scientific studies have pointed out that caffeine intake is associated with sleep disturbances and sleep deprivation. In short, caffeine can cause insomnia, leading to delay in falling asleep and considerable shortening of the sleeping time. However, the influence of caffeine on sleep depends on the amount of caffeine consumed. Moderate consumption of caffeine, (around or less than 250 milligrams daily) does not, in most people, cause any significant sleep problems. Consumption levels of more than 300mg per day points to caffeine addiction and such “caffeine addicts” may develop sleep problems that can even become chronic in nature.
At least some of the mechanisms underlying caffeine’s sleep delaying activity have been illustrated.
Caffeine is known to cause constriction of blood vessels supplying blood to the brain. The reduced blood supply to the brain does not allow either the brain or the body to reach a sleep state. Caffeine also triggers the release of a hormone called adrenaline that has the property of imparting a heightened wakefulness (or alertness) to the person. Also, caffeine has a mild stimulatory effect on the heart and therefore serves to increase the heart rate. Increased heart rate is not helpful to attaining sleepiness.
There is yet another mechanism that is believed to contribute to insomnia caused by caffeine. Caffeine, by increasing blood flow through the kidneys, acts as a diuretic. If a person takes caffeine rich drink such as coffee prior to going to bed, then his sleep can be disturbed in the night by a full bladder and the urgency to urinate.
Lastly, the time of intake of the caffeinated drink plays an important role in determining its effects on sleep. Caffeine, following ingestion, crosses over into the blood stream and reaches peak blood levels after approximately an hour. Therefore, for those who are coffee addicts, and who simply cannot do away with caffeine, care should be taken to stop coffee consumption at least a couple of hours before the intended bedtime.
Although coffee (and in essence, caffeine) is generally associated with causing insomnia, in a minority of people, especially in coffee addicts, having a cup of coffee a couple of hours before going to bed can actually work to induce sleep. This is attributed to some of the delayed-relaxing effects of caffeine.
If caffeine consumers want to make sure that their coffee doesn’t make them lose their sleep, then it is advisable to make sure that they limit their caffeine intake and to have last cup of coffee at least a couple of hours before bedtime!

Do you struggle with irritation, frustration and productivity loss that increase over the course of the day? These are the symptoms of “burnout” that people usually experience during the closing hours of a stress-filled, busy day. Is there any way to fight burnout symptoms? It turns out that “power nap” may provide the optimal solution.
Until James Maas, a social psychologist at Cornell University, came up with the term “power nap”, it used to be called as “cat nap”. Power nap can be simply defined as a short nap, anywhere between fifteen minutes to one hour in duration that can refresh a stressed out person. Although power naps can be taken any time during the day, short naps at or around mid-day are the typical and the most productive power naps.
A lot of scientific research has been geared around to study how exactly power naps bring about such amazing results in people. An insightful study into the phenomenon from the Salk institute of Biological Sciences, strongly suggests that short naps provide a host of benefits to the better functioning of many organs in our body including the vital ones such as heart and brain. Some of the benefits of a short nap include better repair at the cellular level, improved heart function and a more balanced regulation of hormone levels in the body.
As one would expect, the major effect power nap has on the body, involves the brain. Reliable measurements using modern techniques such as MRI (magnetic Resonance Imaging) show that brain activity declines during the third and fourth quarters of the day. A mid-day power nap can act as a boost and prevent the brain activity from falling off during the latter half of the day. Power nap has been shown to greatly improve information processing and memory functions of the brain in many scientific studies. This correlates nicely with reduced stress levels and improved performance on tasks that require the acquisition of new skills, in power nap boosted persons.
Perhaps the most interesting and significant fact about power nap is that it is able to rejuvenate the brain and other organs of the body in an amazingly short period of time. A power nap is believed to recapitulate only the initial stages of sleep and does not involve invoking the deeper sleep states. This is critical since reawakening from light sleep will have refreshing effects while waking up abruptly from some of the deeper stages of sleep can have a negative impact on mental health. Based on these factors, the ideal length of a power nap can vary from fifteen minutes to one hour, depending on the person.
Power nap is the best remedy for stress related problems in sleep deprived individuals. But, catching that half hour of light sleep in the afternoon, following the consumption of a cup of coffee, can do wonders to your productivity and mood even if you are not a sleep starved person!

Sleep and diet- these factors constitute two of the most critical determinants of maintaining good health. That diet and sleep have distinct influences on each other is a proven fact. With this in mind, let’s proceed to examine how our everyday diet influences our sleep. In order to discuss this point clearly, it is best to divide foodstuffs into two classes-
1)    Foods and food supplements that help us enjoy better sleep and hence are recommended for inclusion in the diet and
2)    Foodstuffs and other chemical substances that delay the onset of sleep or cause sleep disorders and should preferably be avoided from our diet.
Let’s turn our attention to those foods that serve to promote sleep. Green vegetables (or leafy vegetables) have been shown to affect sleep in a positive way. More generally, it is advisable to include more chlorophyll containing foods in our daily diet like spinach, lettuce etc…
The role of carbohydrate enriched foods in promoting sleep deserves special mention. Examples of such carbohydrate rich foodstuffs include pasta, whole wheat, brown rice, crackers and oats. Scientific studies have shown that these foods, after getting ingested and absorbed into the body, promote the secretion of a biochemical substance known as serotonin. Serotonin, in the brain, acts to induce sleep. This increased production of serotonin following the consumption of carbohydrate rich foods explains the sleep promoting properties of such food items.
Drinking a glass of milk before going to bed every night is another aid to getting a good night’s sleep. This is attributed to the fact that milk contains the amino acid called tryptophan. In our body tryptophan is converted into serotonin, which as outlined above, contributes to promoting sleep. In this regard, it is also advisable to eat moderate amounts of legumes, peanuts, nutrition-quality yeast and fish. These foods contain plenty of niacin, sometimes known as vitamin B3. Niacin is important for the production of serotonin in the body. Thus, consumption of niacin-rich foods usually has a relaxing effect on the body.
While it is important to recognize sleep promoting dietary items, it is equally important to identify those food substances that hamper or interfere with normal sleep. Intake of coffee or tea must be avoided before bed time. It is preferable to stop drinking coffee or tea at least four hours prior to the person’s normal bed time. These beverages, especially coffee, contain modest levels of caffeine, a substance known to delay sleep and increase alertness.
Excessive alcohol consumption must also be avoided prior to going to bed. Although alcohol helps one to fall asleep quickly, later on in the night, it can cause interspersed periods of alertness, resulting in disturbed or fragmented sleep. It is also advisable to put off drinking colas for supper as many types of cola also contain varying amounts of caffeine.
Finally, it is important to exclude hot, oily and spicy food items from the evening meal and supper. Such foods can cause irritation of the stomach lining and this may result in severe heartburn during the night.
It is also a good practice not to take in large quantities of fluids before going to sleep as this can cause a full bladder during the night. This in turn can cause strong urinary urges, powerful enough to awaken a person and thereby result in broken sleep!

Light is one of the most important factors which has a direct influence on sleep. But before we can meaningfully understand the effects of light on sleep, we need to briefly discuss about the biological clock in our brain. As many of us are aware, almost all of our body functions and processes follow a cycle over a 24 hour period. The majority of these body function cycles are set on a central sleep/wake cycle. The sleep/wake cycle, then, crucially depends on stimuli in the form of light. Alternate light/dark periods are important for the proper “setting” and maintenance of the biological clock situated in the brain.
With this in the backdrop, let’s examine the effect of light on the sleep/wake cycle. Bright light, received by the retina of our eyes, is converted into electrical signals and relayed to the hypothalamus in the brain where the internal biological clock is located. This stimulates the breakdown of an enzyme in the brain which helps in the production of melatonin. Melatonin is the hormone that promotes sleep. As melatonin levels drop due to this sequence of biochemical events, sleep induction is withheld.
Alternatively, when there is low amount of bright light, the pineal gland in the brain secretes melatonin in several short bursts. This leads to sleep induction. During sleep, our closed eyelids make sure that visual stimuli in the form of bright light are prevented from entering the retina. This ensures proper melatonin levels and a good night’s sleep.
Exposure to bright light therefore plays a very important role in setting our internal biological clock and therefore in maintaining a healthy sleep/wake cycle. For this reason, some sleep clinicians and doctors say that it is highly beneficial if we can go outside early in the morning and get exposed to sunlight for a very short period of time. During this time strong visual signals are conveyed to the brain and this help it to set the biological clock.
Owing to the fact that exposure to light can greatly affect our sleep cycle, light therapy is now being tested out at many clinics to treat sleep disorders. Therapy using light is now also being used to help those suffering from acute jet lag recover more quickly. However, it must be stressed that it takes a few days for our body’s biological clock to reset itself to new light/dark patterns.
Given the importance of light in synchronizing the sleep/wake cycle, it is important to follow some basic guidelines to ensure a good night’s sleep. Firstly, it is highly recommended to turn off all lights during sleep. If this cannot be accomplished due to other reasons, then it is important to keep the light levels down to the minimum possible amount. The reason is that although our eyelids block out a significant portion of light, it cannot stop it completely. If the light intensity is high, then some part of it can penetrate the eyelids and cause the retina to give off impulses to the brain.
Another very interesting fact has emerged from a couple of recent studies. We have always believed that light can influence the brain (and hence sleep!) only by entering into the retina (eyes). However, there seems to be strong evidence to show that light shone on the back of the knee of s sleeping person can affect the quality of his sleep! Therefore, much more research is warranted on this interesting relationship between sleep and light.

All of us are only too familiar with the importance of sleep and are aware of what happens when we are sleep deprived. Sleep helps to rest the body and brain and serves to refresh our mind. Since the brain is mainly responsible for inducing the sleep state, an obvious, close association exists between sleep and the brain. In this context, it is interesting to examine the relationship between sleep (or rather the lack of it) and memory functions.
Many sleep researchers and clinicians have asked the question of “How sleep affects our memory”. In order to address this question, numerous scientific studies have been carried out, both on animals as well as on human beings. Results from almost all such studies clearly show that sleep deprivation, both short term and long term, negatively influences memory functions. Specifically, lack of sleep affects certain stages and certain types of memory functions.
A series of animal studies and human experiments have revealed that the type of memory that is most significantly affected by sleep deprivation is cognitive or skill memory. Skill memory refers to our ability to remember a newly learned skill such as a sequence of limb or finger movements. Sleep deprived subjects of the study performed markedly poor on a variety of tasks that tested skill memory functions.
Other experiments have looked at the actual stage of memory formation that is affected by sleep deprivation. Such experiments strongly point out that sleep is important in memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is the stage in which newly acquired short term memories are “replayed” in the neuronal circuits of the brain, eventually resulting in the formation of long-term memories.
Importantly, research into the relationship between sleep and memory has also shown that it is the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep that is involved in memory consolidation. During REM sleep, both the brain as well as the body attains a state that is similar to the wakefulness state. Dreaming is a brain activity that is believed to occur during this period and may reflect the fact that memories are being replayed in the brain through repeated firing of neuronal circuits to further strengthen the neuronal connections.
The REM sleep phase is also believed to catalyze memory consolidation by causing reverse learning. In reverse learning, huge amounts of information (that is deemed unwanted by the brain) acquired by the senses during the daytime are eliminated in order to prevent information overload in the brain. The brain structure called hippocampus is important for many of these processes.
There is also some evidence to show that lack of sleep also adversely affects recall memory or memory relating to logical tasks. Human volunteers, who were sleep deprived for more than thirty-five hours, gave poor performances in recollecting the information that they had learned from textual material immediately prior to undergoing sleep deprivation.
There is an important last point to consider. Although, sleep deprivation of a few hours for a couple of nights may not cause noticeable memory impairment (because our body has other mechanisms to compensate for it), chronic sleep deprivation has been shown to cause significant memory impairment. Scientists have compared the memory loss of a chronically sleep deprived person to the memory impairment that results from aging! Yet another good reason to get a good night’s sleep!