Sleeping Well

We don't usually need to think very much about our sleep - it's just a part of life that we take for granted. When we can't sleep, though, it can be a real problem. In fact, most of us will find it hard to sleep at some point in our lives. We have a word for it - insomnia. It's often just for a short time, perhaps when we're worried or excited. After a few days, things settle down and we get back to sleeping normally. However, we need sleep to keep our minds and bodies healthy. If we carry on sleeping badly, we start to notice the effects.
What is sleep?
Sleep is the regular period in every 24 hours when we are unconscious and unaware of our surroundings. There are two main types of sleep:

*
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep

It comes and goes throughout the night, and makes up about one fifth of our sleep time. During REM sleep, our brain is very active, our muscles are very relaxed, our eyes move quickly from side to side and we dream.

*
Non-REM sleep

The brain is quiet, but the body may move around. Hormones are released into the bloodstream and our body repairs itself after the wear and tear of the day. There are 4 stages of non-REM sleep:

1. The muscles relax, the heart beats slower and body temperature falls - "pre-sleep".
2. Light sleep - we can still be woken easily without feeling confused.
3. "Slow wave" sleep - our blood pressure falls, we may talk in our sleep or sleep walk.
4. Deep "slow wave" sleep - we become very hard to wake. If we are woken, we feel confused.


We move between REM and non-REM sleep about five times throughout the night, dreaming more as we get toward the morning.

During a normal night, we will also have short periods of waking. These last 1 or 2 minutes and happen every 2 hours or so. We aren't usually aware of them. We are more likely to remember them if we feel anxious or there is something else going on - noises outside, our partner snoring etc.
How much sleep do we need?
Nine months and after
This depends mainly on how old we are.


* Babies sleep for about 17 hours each day.
* Older children only need 9 or 10 hours a night.
* Most adults need around 7-8 hours sleep each night.
* Older people need the same amount of sleep, but will often only have one period of deep sleep during the night, usually in the first 3 or 4 hours, after which they wake more easily. We also tend to dream less as we get older.


There are also differences between people of the same age. Most of us need 7-8 hours a night, but some (a few) people can get by with only 3 hours a night. It's not helpful to regularly sleep more than 7-8 hours each night.

The short periods of being awake feel much longer than they really are. So it's easy to feel that we are not sleeping as much as we actually are.