Pep Talk> Do you get enough sleep?

Text by: Tanya Munshi
There is a lot more to sleep, than just closing your eyes, dreaming, or feeling refreshed in the morning to start a new day. Sleep is a mechanism that the brain uses to recuperate and rest. Probably that’s one of the reasons maximum people face sleep problems and stress these days, all thanks to our hectic schedule. Needless to say, sleep is irreplaceable in our lives.

“It’s a state of unconsciousness when the brain is more responsive to internal than external stimuli. This means that all the senses—visual, auditory and others slow down and the brain becomes less responsive to them,” says Prachi S. Vaish, a practicing psychologist with Ruby Hall Clinic, Pune.

How many hours should we sleep?
Vaish says, “An average person needs about 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep in 24 hours,” Most often in our current lifestyle, getting 8 hours of sleep is a luxury. An ideal situation would be where we could divide our sleep to 6 to 6.5 hours during the night and a 1 to 2 hour nap in the afternoon.

24-year-old Rahul Behel*, a Team Leader of a Bangalore based BPO says, “I ensure I get 6 to 8 hours of sleep. But the problem would be I am asleep during the day time or late evenings. The regular or normal habit of sleeping at 9:00 or 10:00 pm would not come into play.” This is because at a BPO one is expected to work as the process requirements, depending on a client country. Hence, employees schedule their work timings as to the particular country’s time line.

How sleep works?
Have you ever noticed that when a person is in deep sleep, you can see his eyeballs moving under his eyelids? “That is called Rapid Eye Movement or REM, where the person is in deepest sleep and dreaming,” adds Vaish.

When you lie down on the bed with eyes closed and you slowly start drifting into half sleep, that’s called entering into NREM (non REM) sleep. After this when you finally fall asleep, you’ve entered REM sleep.
Now in an entire 8 to 9 hour sleep, it’s not a single stretch but many cycles of NREM-REM sleep taking place. Only that the transition is so fast that we usually don’t wake up between these cycles. “So, if we sleep less this cycle gets disturbed, therefore we will not enter REM and will not feel refreshed when we wake up,” adds Vaish.

If you’re going through too much stress, then your sleep cycle might just stay limited to the NREM phase. “That’s because, too much stress prevents your brain from relaxing and slowing down even if you want it to. Instead, the brain will keep churning out thoughts and this will stop it from progressing to REM sleep,” concludes Vaish.

Reasons for lack of Sleep
Possible reasons for disturbed sleep are:-
~ Emotional problems
~ Excessive intake of caffeine
~ Too much stress, worry
~ Heavy medication
~ Irregular/ long work hours

Published in Rediff.com, on December 21, 2006
Link: http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2006/dec/21sleep.htm