Sleep is a physiological human need, just like hunger or thirst. If a person is deprived of sleep, he will eventually die. In ancient times, people considered sleeping a kind of death, because when a person went to bed and closed his eyes, his breathing became rarer and his reaction to external stimuli decreased. Scientists realized that sleep is not a monotonous state, but an active process with many functions. So today I will tell you about the importance of a good night's sleep.

What are the dangers of insomnia? Every neurologist knows that insomnia is an insidious time bomb in our bodies. It starts with difficulties falling asleep, as well as short-term sleep disorders, and eventually leads to physical and nervous exhaustion. Insomnia can cause fairly serious CNS disorders, psychosis, depression, lack of sufficient normal sleep increases the risk of dangerous diseases such as stroke and heart attack.

What Happens to Our Brain Because Of Lack of Sleep

Insomnia and lack of sleep significantly reduce the quality of human life, cause apathy, irritability, and increased fatigue. A "sleep-deprived" person may have problems with memory, reduced mental and physical activity, and this will have a negative impact on your professional activities.

1. The Latest Findings on Sleep and Memory

How well we sleep depends on our brain and memory function. Our brain, not getting the hours of rest it needs, begins to perceive familiar tasks as new, and therefore spends considerably more effort to solve them.

2. Sleep as A Means of Memory Training

Those people who regularly do not get enough sleep very often show poor results in memory tests. Belgian scientists conducted an entertaining experiment. Volunteers were shown images and then given time to rest. Those of them, who suffered from insomnia, when repeatedly shown the images were able to remember less than those who had a good sleep.

3. Remembering Things

Recent scientific research has revealed that while sleeping, the brain is engaged in remembering and learning things seen while awake. Evidence has been found that sleep is indeed necessary for humans at all stages of learning about the world, from schoolwork to learning how to cook. In addition, they look better.

4. Sleep Time

Babies spend the most time sleeping. While an adult's need for sleep is satisfied on average by seven to eight hours, for infants it is at least ten. In addition, a child has to absorb a lot of new information. Just to remember and process it requires a long sleep.

5. After Pregnancy, You Won't Have A Good Night's Sleep for A Long Time

Unless you plan to give your baby to a nanny immediately after birth, you will definitely not have a good night's sleep for the next few months. However, it turns out in your case, tries to get as much sleep as possible during your pregnancy. Sure, it's hard to get enough sleep, but you won't be as crushingly tired.

6. A Good Night's Sleep Is Important for The Fetus

Getting plenty of rest is critical not only for you but also for your unborn child. During pregnancy, the body has special stress, only properly sleeping, he will be able to cope with them fully.

7. Nervous System

Lack of sleep affects the immune system. Simply speaking, the antiviral system simply doesn't have time to recover, thereby depressing it. This makes us vulnerable to any infections. Sleep and immunity are interrelated. The immune system can affect sleep patterns, and sleep affects the body's defense system. More sleep is unlikely to make you completely immune to disease, but lack of sleep very quickly leads to an imbalanced immune system in which some elements are overstimulated and others are weakened.

8. Sleep and The Brain

The nervous system is directly affected by your sleep patterns. If we don't give our head enough rest, our nerve cells become agitated, work beyond normal, our mood becomes anxious, aggressive, depressed, etc. The brain becomes incapable of working, the ability to work falls.

9. Weight Gain

If a person is sleep-deprived, they expose themselves to weight gain, obesity, and even type 2 diabetes. If the brain and nerve cells begin to work at full blast, then most of the energy from food goes there.

10. Hormone Production

• First, melatonin, which normalizes hormones in general and blood pressure, as well as supports the immune system.
• Second, male and female sex hormones.
• Third, the hormones leptin - satiety, and ghrelin - hunger.

11. Training

The connection between normal sleep and training is simple: if you got enough sleep - full of strength and energy - ready and willing to work out if you did not get enough sleep - no mood, strength, energy, desire to do something - you skip the workout. At this point, melatonin and somatotropin are important. They help repair the muscles and the body as a whole. If sleep is lacking, cortisol (elevated) will come into play and prevent proper recovery or even expose the muscles to decay.

12. Cleansing

While awake, the human body is busy organizing movement, digesting food, and actively exercising. In sleep, when you are resting, completely different processes take place - the binding and removal of toxins, the elimination of harmful microorganisms.

13. Fixation of Information in The Brain

New knowledge stays in the memory exactly because of the night process of remembering. Long-term memory is formed, new skills are fixed.

14. Immunity Strengthening

New immune system cells are formed during sleep, protecting the person from infections.

15. Replenishment of Energy Resources

Performance in the morning is due to the fact that for 6-8 hours there was no load on the muscles.

That’s It!

To get a good night's sleep and a good night's sleep, you need to take your bedroom arrangements seriously. It is not enough to choose a beautiful and comfortable bed, you need a mattress on which you will feel comfortable all night long.

The best music to enjoy before the bedtime

A sleepless night is, to put it mildly, not a pleasant thing. It would seem that sleeping should be an extremely natural and uncomplicated activity for a person, but insomnia torments many of us. This is all the more unpleasant, since, according to new data, hours spent in bed are no less important for physical and mental health than eating, socializing, and walking.

A healthy night's sleep helps to improve mood, improve concentration, and memory. And scientists often associate sleep deprivation with a number of diseases, from heart disease to diabetes. If a person tries to fall asleep with all his might, then the effect is often the opposite - sleep does not come. Therefore, many ways have been invented that supposedly help us achieve our cherished goal. And listening to different sounds and music is one of them. Let's have a more detailed look at it.

Impact of music

In fact, the quality of sleep itself is not affected by music at all. We just don't hear it when our brains are disconnected from reality. But at the intermediate stage, that is, falling asleep, sounds can have a certain effect. In 2007, Hungarian scientists conducted one curious study, as a result of which it was found that the music that the experimental students listened to during sleep lowered blood pressure, reduced the heartbeat, in general, calmed the respondents, and they safely flew to the land of dreams. Experts from other countries, including China, also agreed with the Hungarians.

If music really has such a beneficial effect on the body, then another reasonable question arises: which melodies should be downloaded to your player? Everything is very simple here: focus on your own preferences and your own experience. However, experts still advise listening to some of their recommendations.

Recommendations on choosing music

• First, listen only to music that brings pleasant associations or memories to you. Moreover, these memories should not awaken wild delight in you or other bright emotions. Otherwise, you will definitely not be able to fall asleep due to nervous overexcitement.
• Secondly, it is not necessary to exclusively use melodies that are supposedly specially designed for sleeping and with which the Internet is full nowadays. They really help some people, but not because they have some miraculous effect. Often it is music without words, slow and calm. Thanks to these qualities, it promotes relaxation and subsequent falling asleep. However, you can compose your own collection of melodies for sleep, based on your own feelings. Someone falls asleep with the help of classical music, and someone chooses pop or even rock.

Sounds of nature

A survey conducted among residents of the UK showed that many people use various sounds of nature as a sleeping pill. Frequently, the chirping of birds and the noises of tropical forests are preferred. Scientists only support this point of view. Experts from the Brighton and Sussex Medical Schools have proven that sounds of nature actually contribute to relaxation. Therefore, the natural sound background perfectly distracts from obsessive and disturbing thoughts, which most often prevent us from falling asleep.

However, professionals warn: the sounds of nature, too, must be selected based on only your experiences and emotions. The fact is that some people relax perfectly when listening to the rain, and for some, it may be associated with some unpleasant memories that are unlikely to contribute to a quick fall asleep.

Audiobooks

As for audiobooks, while listening to them, many of us fall asleep due to the conditioned reflex developed in childhood, when mothers read books to us before going to bed. A low voice, as well as the monotony of the narrative, also promotes relaxation and focuses attention on the content of what is being read, and not on your own, sometimes restless, thoughts.

What kind of sound book to take to bed? You are free to decide for yourself. Some fall asleep when reading (or listening to) detective stories, others prefer classics, while the others like poetry the most.

For children

Bedtime meditation poems are a special kind of cure for improper sleeping for children. They help to relax, relieve stress after a long busy day, improve mood, help a child fall asleep faster and enjoy a sound and healthy sleep.

Meditation poems, like lullabies, are useful for getting your child to sleep quickly. It's possible to listen to them online or download several.

Listening to online meditation poems will be a great addition to lullabies for quickly falling asleep. Sometimes, just listening to the poem is enough for the child to fall asleep without any problems.

A collection of songs and other helpful things

American psychologist and sleep specialist James Findlay named eight ways to fall asleep quickly when you are troubled by anxious thoughts.

“Very often people complain that they are physically tired, but cannot sleep because of worries and annoying thoughts,” says James Findlay. According to the expert, there are some techniques that can help you cope with anxiety and fall asleep easily.

If you often suffer from insomnia, check out these recommendations.

To-do list

Make a to-do list. If you have anxious, negative thoughts before going to bed, turn them into positive ones. Make a list of good things to do for the next day, such as pleasant trips or good deeds. When falling asleep, you will be thinking about your plans. Research shows that writing down tasks can help clear your mind and tune in to a productive new day, which means you fall asleep faster.

Get out of bed

If you have been wasting time in bed for a long time and cannot sleep, it is better to get up and concentrate on something else. Psychologists say that frequent, prolonged attempts to sleep train the brain in such a way that it begins to associate the bed in your bedroom with insomnia. If within 20-30 minutes you cannot sleep, get up and do something: read, do crosswords. Soon you will really want to sleep.

Books will do

Read a book, but not a very exciting one. You can't just stop annoying thoughts in your head, but you can take your mind off of them by focusing on the book. But it should be a paper book, as gadget screens can further disrupt sleep. When you're distracted from what's bothering you, you fall asleep faster. The main thing is not to choose a book that is too interesting, because of which it will also be difficult to fall asleep.

Audiobooks

Listen to a podcast or audiobook. An audiobook or podcast works just like a book, distracting from sad thoughts and calming down. After listening, you can safely fall asleep.

Various sounds

You can also turn on soothing sounds. You can create a sleep-friendly sound environment for yourself. Some people are soothed by the sound of the ocean, others - by the singing of birds or the sounds of the evening forest. Just download these sounds and put on your headphones.

Breathe

Focus on your breathing. Deep and slow breathing can slow your heart rate and relieve stress. Accordingly, it will be easier for you to fall asleep.

Meditate

Meditation allows you to find mental balance and calmness. You can meditate not only just before bed, but also throughout the day. If you are unsure of the best way to meditate, you can use dedicated apps or YouTube videos that detail meditation techniques.

Download the sleep app

In the modern world, there are useful applications for smartphones that help you fall asleep faster. These apps contain specially selected sounds and noises to help the brain relax and fall asleep.

A collection of songs

Create a list of songs to fall asleep quickly. Music can really help you fall asleep. Many people use it for this, but, of course, it all depends on the type of music and the specific person. Some types of music can help you sleep better than others. Quiet, calm compositions at a slow pace with a small number of dynamic changes are most suitable for this. Such music helps to calm down, slow down the physiological processes in the body and get distracting thoughts out of the head.

Music has two effects on us. The first one is biological: you synchronize your breathing and pulse with the help of the slow tempo of the music and thus turn off your body and get ready for sleep. The second effect is that it chases away thoughts that keep you awake. Focused listening can distract you from anxiety and fill you with positive thoughts that are helpful for falling asleep.

Calm music usually helps you fall asleep. It's better not to listen to punk or heavy metal at night: aggressive, fast compositions with a lot of dynamic changes will certainly not help you fall asleep. Many people - for example, singers or songwriters - say that classical music or songs with a calm voice help them a lot.

But how to create a helpful playlist for yourself? There are several options for you to choose from: you can download a special app that already contains playlists of songs for falling asleep or create such a collection by yourself. If you have decided to use the second option, it may be a little bit more challenging. For example, if you want to download some songs From YouTube, you will understand it's impossible to do it. Nevertheless, you can easily download any YouTube video and convert it to MP3 format with the help of special convertors. It's quick and easy, so you will create a collection really quickly.