How to improve your sleep quality.
Do you always feel tired? Even after waking up, don’t you feel energetic in the morning? Do you want to concentrate on important tasks
but still can’t perform as per your wish?
Then, my friend, it is possible that you don’t know about your superpower. Sleep is a superpower. We don’t say that, the world’s number one sleep expert says that. In his book ‘Why We Sleep’, he has answered many deep questions. Like, why do we dream? How does lack of sleep affect you? And most importantly, how can we improve our sleep quality? Be with us for the next 10 minutes. Your view of sleep will change. Throughout your day, you will feel recharged and energetic. And become more productive. We bring the best knowledge of the world simply and interestingly in front of you. If you find this blog helpful, then please don’t forget to share my blog. It is free for you but it helps us a lot.
Step 1: Low sleep disorder. 
One out of three people in the world have a sleep-related disease. Yes, we can call it a disease Because it not only our productivity but also our health. This disease comes in different forms. Insomnia means lack of sleep. Narcolepsy means, excessive daytime sleepiness. Sleep apnea where your breathing stops in sleep. All these problems are very common. Our life is becoming more and more stressful which has an impact on our sleep. Let’s start the article with sleep debt. What is sleep debt? A simple formula. Required sleep minus actual sleep is equal to sleep debt. Suppose your body needs 8 hours of sleep to fully rest. But you sleep only 6 hours, then you take a debt of 2 hours from your body. The problem with debt is that debt is cumulative. It means this debt keeps increasing. Sleep deprivation works like a domino effect. If you sleep less than 2 hours every day, then in just 4 days, you must have slept so less that you must have skipped a full day’s sleep. Exactly, how much sleep do you need? Sleep Foundation says that an adult needs at least 7 hours of sleep. Many productivity experts say that 6 hours is enough. But research has proved that 6 hours of sleep doesn’t give you either quantity or quality. Sleep is fuel for our body. Some people think that we can drink coffee or Red Bull to dodge sleep. But have you seen those bikers on the road who instead of petrol put kerosene in their petrol tank,
and emit such smoke from their bike? If you replace sleep with something else, it’s only going to damage your car. How much sleep do you need? Let’s calculate.
Step 2: Sleep Calculator.
I wish I had a scientific calculator that I could give you so that you can calculate exactly how much sleep you need. Unfortunately, there is no such formula. But yes, there’s definitely a sleep cycle Through which we can estimate. We often think that our body is like a mobile phone which needs to be charged every night and with time our body will be charged. After being charged in 8 hours, we can use it for 16 hours as per our wish
and then we have to charge it again. But this is not true. We can divide our sleep into 4 stages.
This is called sleep architecture. Stage 1 is N1 sleep where we are not fully asleep.
We are going to sleep slowly. In this stage, if there is a loud noise or get pushed by someone,
then our sleep can get easily disturbed. This stage lasts for 1 to 5 minutes. The next stage is N2 where our brain activity quickly comes down. Our body temperature decreases and muscles relax. It lasts from 10 minutes to 1 hour. The next stage is N3 which we call deep sleep. In this stage, our body is recovering. Our creativity is increasing. Here, our brain processes our memories. Muscle repair happens in this stage. Here, our brain releases delta waves. This stage lasts for 20 to 40 minutes. The fourth stage is REM
which is rapid eye movement. Here, our brain activity increases. The dreams that we remember are the dreams seen during REM. After sleeping, for the first 90 minutes, this stage doesn’t start. Here, our brain is being cleaned. The things that are unnecessary are being deleted from the memory. And important things are stored in the right place. Have you noticed that you can only remember some things and not others? So let me explain.
Your brain functions like a computer. So there is a computer part called RAM. And when the computer is switched off, whatever data is stored on the RAM gets deleted. Your short-term memories are something like this. When you sleep, those short-term memories evaporate. But out of these short-term memories, there are some things, that you need to remember. Suppose you have made a mistake or you have learned something new, then the brain knows that these things are important. They’ll be needed to be used in the long term.
When you sleep, your short-term memories convert into long-term memories. This is why if you don’t sleep well, the next day you feel very foggy. You feel like a zombie. It becomes difficult to think.
These four stages are combined to form a sleep cycle. This cycle repeats again and again. And for a healthy sleep, you need 4-6 sleep cycles. So, if you take a 90-minute sleep cycle, then on average, you need 7-9 hours of sleep. In this chart, you can see that in every sleep cycle, your REM timing increases.
For example, your first REM runs for only 10 minutes and then its duration increases gradually. This is a sleep science which after understanding, you can understand your body.
Step 3: Understand your body.
Often people say, early to sleep, and early to rise to make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. On the internet, you will read many such articles that the CEOs of big companies wake up at 4 am. But after further diving you realize that everyone’s sleeping pattern is different. Because everyone’s lifestyle is different and everyone’s energy levels are different throughout the day. Everyone’s body type can be different. These are called chronotypes. There are mainly 4 types of chronotypes. Bear, lion, wolf, and dolphin. They mainly focus on two things. When do you sleep and when do you wake up? And most importantly,
when are you most active during the day? Bears sleep after sunset and wake up with the sunrise.
Their energy is at its peak before 2:00 and after 2:00, it gradually decreases. Lions sleep before bears and wake up before sunrise. Their energy is the highest in the morning. Wolves are the exact opposite of Lions. They work more at night and are more creative at night. So naturally, they wake up late in the morning.
And at the very end, are the dolphins who are light sleepers. Wake up at the slightest noise, but fall asleep just as quickly, who cannot follow any pattern. Understanding this chronotype is important. At the same time, understanding your lifestyle is important. If you are working somewhere, then from 9 a.m. to 3-4 p.m.
you have to be productive. So you cannot afford a wolf’s lifestyle. Because it will impact your work. You will either have to find a job that gives you flexible timing. Or you will have to train your body.
Step 4: How to train the body.
Everyone knows that sleep is important. But when you go to sleep at night, you can’t sleep at all. And you feel tired all day. This is the real problem. Now most important point.
How to train the body? Understood the whole theory. But now we have to achieve our goals. We have to take time to exercise. We have to feel productive all day. Along with that, have to get sufficient sleep too.
How to achieve all these things? Let’s see some tips and tricks. Tip number one is to get an alarm clock. What nonsense is this? What is the need for an alarm clock? The alarm is also in our phones. Research says 67% of the people in the world start and end the day with their mobile phones. This proves
that the other 33% of people are lying. It often happens that we set an alarm on our phone. And we have all those apps on our phones which are filled with all the distractions of the world. So when the morning alarm goes off, we straight away start scrolling the Reels. Then sitting on the toilet, we scroll the Reels. And then we don’t even realize where the half an hour flew away. This gives us a dopamine hit but drains our morning energy. And this is the same energy that we can use to do an actual task. But because we have already spent this energy, we then start feeling very sleepy. The best thing to do is get an alarm clock and not check your phone first thing in the morning. Tip number two is a hot bath before sleep.
Take a hot bath 90 minutes before sleeping. Research says that before sleeping taking a hot bath
reduces your body’s core temperature and gives your body sleep signals. Think about it this way. Before the invention of electricity, we used to sleep at night. At night, the temperature used to be lower than in the day.
So as soon as the atmospheric temperature gets lower than our body temperature, instantly our circadian rhythm triggers. And by taking a hot bath, we can achieve this. This gives a signal to our body’s thermoregulatory center. After coming out of the bath, our body temperature gradually decreases. Studies say that by following this, after coming to bed, you will be able to fall asleep 10 minutes earlier. Tip number three is to set a routine. Routine seems like a boring word but trust me, having dinner at the same time, sleeping at the same time, and getting up around the same time is a superpower. It brings discipline to your life and trains your body so that your body can give you the best results. I have realized that I can’t sleep immediately
after eating. So this year, I have made sure that I finish my dinner around 7 o’clock
so that there is some time left
between my dinner and sleep. I love coffee. But coffee stays in our system for 8 hours. That means I know
that if I drink coffee after 4 o’clock, it is difficult to fall asleep till midnight. So I have decided in my routine that after 4 o’clock, I don’t want to drink coffee so that my body gets time to get out of the coffee kick. You can try one thing, put your phone not near the bed,
but far away from the bed for charging so that when you are sleeping, the voice of the message or any notification doesn’t disturb you.
Step 5: sleep is equal to satisfaction.
I have observed that the day my mind, body, and soul are completely satisfied, I get a very good sleep. Here, the body is also important. Research has proved that regular aerobic exercise reduces the chances of insomnia. It doesn’t have to be a lot. After dinner, a 15-minute walk is sufficient.
Tip number 5 is, to write down your thoughts. This is the most difficult step. And it is very difficult for anyone to follow this every day. But trust me, it helps. In 2023, before I go to sleep, I definitely write a line about my day. It can be any good memory or something that made me happy.
Something that made my day very special. I have also explained about it in this blog. I call it a “one-line gratitude journal”. This is nothing fancy, just an Excel sheet in which I just write in one line what made me happy on that day. As many people end their dinner with dessert, similarly, even you can end your day with gratitude. This reduces the stress and anxiety of your day. And helps in getting a satisfactory sleep. And most importantly, listen to your body. No matter what I say in this article, No matter how much knowledge a doctor or therapist gives you, ultimately, only your body can tell you what is suitable for you and what is not. So observe, not only the quantity of your sleep but also, the quality of your sleep. Observe and question yourself at what time of the day you are the most productive. Notice your sleep cycles and understand your chronotype. And instead of controlling your body learn to cooperate with it. Trust me, you will love your life. If you found this article valuable or learned something new, then don’t forget to Share this article. Because we want to introduce the best knowledge in the world. We want to make your life better. We want to give you solutions to common problems.
So that all of us can make our lives better, even if it’s just 1%. And conveying this important thing to you makes a difference to me.