The most important factor for healthy sleep. What are the health benefits of sleep? What are the types of sleep disorders?

As part of the series of programs about healthy image life from the angle of innovation, it is important to talk about such a component as healthy sleep. During sleep, immune, metabolic, mental and other processes are established in the body. Moreover, all the information that we acquire during the day is stored in the so-called long-term memory at night, and in the morning the brain is again able to perceive information.

First the principle of healthy sleep, on which 50% of success depends, is mode. We should go to bed and get up at approximately the same time every day, regardless of the day of the week: even on weekends. Thus, the body develops conditioned reflex, which makes it easier for us to fall asleep in the evening and easier to wake up in the morning, feeling alert and rested.

Second an important aspect is sleep duration. The norms are different for each person. Newborn babies need 16 to 18 hours of sleep per day. Preschoolers - 11-12 hours, teenagers - 9 hours, adults - 7-8 hours.

Third aspect is nap, which is debatable whether it is useful or not. Daytime naps can be beneficial when they do not interfere with nighttime sleep and when they last between 15 and 40 to 50 minutes. Accordingly, you should not lie down for 2-3 hours during the day, because... Basic nighttime sleep will likely be affected as a result.

Fourth aspect is physical activity. After a good day's work, you will sleep better, so when working sedentarily, it is especially important to find physical activities in the evening: a fitness room or just a walk before bed.

Fifth moment is microclimate, i.e. the state of the environment in the room in which a person sleeps. The bedroom should be cool and fresh - in this case you will be able to get a good night's sleep and feel rested in the morning.

Concerning technologies, which allow you to control and influence the listed parameters, there are a huge number of them. The most important and simple device is the usual smartphone, which has a built-in accelerometer, gyroscope, camera and microphone. The combination of these sensors allows us to monitor a number of parameters such as sleep mode, sleep duration, physical activity. There are now a large number of applications that you can install on your smartphone, place next to you on your bed and receive a detailed sleep report in the morning.

Very popular in Lately enjoys discussion sleep phases. Previously people they didn’t know what sleep phases were, and, perhaps, they didn’t need it. But with the advent of technology, it turned out to be interesting to find out how we sleep, what parts our sleep consists of.

• The first one is slow-wave sleep phase, which occurs immediately after we lie down and begin to fall asleep. Shallow sleep begins: we doze.
  At this moment, body temperature, blood pressure, and pulse decrease, and we begin to “fall” into sleep.
• Next stage - deep sleep phase, in which a person is as relaxed as possible, and all his systems reduce activity: blood pressure is the lowest, body temperature is the lowest overnight.
• However, already an hour and a half after falling asleep, REM sleep phase. During REM sleep, brain activity increases, the eyes dart, and the person dreams.

These stages change several times during the night.

One of the devices that allows us to monitor our sleep is fitness bracelet. The bracelet has almost the same set of sensors and sensors as a smartphone. In addition, some bracelets have a heart rate sensor. Together, all these sensors provide a complete picture of the phases of sleep and the state of the body.

Another device is one that has a number of sensors built into it to record the listed parameters. The pillow comes with a mobile app that gives us a full sleep report for the past night, week, month. The pillow also has a built-in alarm clock that gently vibrates and wakes you up in the morning at the right time.

The next type of device is one used, as a rule, to ensure a pleasant and smooth fall asleep and a gentle awakening. It is believed that before falling asleep, a person needs to be in a calm state, away from gadgets and with a minimum amount of blue radiation around. This is why some smartphones have come up with a function that turns off blue colors in the evening, and the image becomes very warm. Lamps work in a similar way, creating a soft, warm atmosphere in the room and setting you up for sleep. In the morning, a few minutes before waking up, the lamp begins to gradually flood the room with bright light, preparing the body for awakening. This creates the dawn effect.

The following devices are for the pillow and trackers for the bed. This is a class of devices that replicate the functions of a smartphone, bracelet and pillow. These are small devices that look like flat stickers that are placed on the pillow, or under the pillow, or under the mattress, and record the same parameters.

There is also such a device as one that can generate electrical impulses so that a person can fall asleep during the day. This is a mask that is worn on the face, in which there are electrodes in the eye area that deliver weak electrical impulses. These impulses help a person to work time I could fall asleep and get enough sleep within the shortest possible time. There are also night masks with vibrations, music and special light.

In other words, do not forget that healthy sleep is a very important component of your lifestyle person, and now there is a huge number of technologies and devices in different price ranges, thanks to which anyone can find something suitable for themselves that would improve the quality of sleep and overall well-being.

Watch our new stories and interesting discussions in the project on Evercare.

During daylight hours a person works, then he needs rest. Sleep is a normal and vital period for every body. What should it be like? How much sleep does a person need to stay healthy? Is it important to go to bed and get up at the same time?

Healthy sleep - what is it like?

Let's start with interesting fact, which was established by scientists: people who sleep the same number of hours at night live longer than those who change the duration of their sleep. These same experts noted that lack of sleep contributes to the development of diseases of the cardiovascular system. The body is subject to wear and tear, changes occur even at the level of biochemical reactions. But more on that later.

Let's see what advice experts give to make our sleep healthy.

1. A routine is needed. In order for sleep to bring maximum benefit and minimum harm, you need to go to bed and get up at the same time. When this regime is violated, our The biological clock- biorhythms. It must be said that even on weekends, sleep and wakefulness should not change. Let's look at small children who don't care whether it's a day off or a weekday - they get up at about the same time. Let's take an example from them.
2. Duration of sleep. Scientists have answered the question of how much sleep you need: on average, the sleep period should be 7-8 hours. However, healthy sleep is uninterrupted sleep. It is healthier to sleep for 6 hours without waking up than to sleep for 8 hours with awakenings. Therefore, WHO data on this issue expand the boundaries of healthy sleep: an adult needs to sleep from 6 to 8 hours a day for normal functioning.
3. Don't lie in bed after you wake up. There is a danger of falling asleep again. In addition, the body must get used to the fact that the day begins precisely after waking up at the set time. This will very quickly become the norm for you.
4. Avoid stimulating environments 1 hour before bedtime. Prepare your body for sleep by eliminating fussy activities and vigorous exercise at least 1 hour before bedtime.
5. Before going to bed, perform relaxing procedures. Let this become a tradition, especially for those who have problems falling asleep. Establish your own “ceremony” before bed, in which you include what helps you relax. If a person did active actions and, not calming down, went to bed, he can toss and turn in bed for a long time.
6. Try not to sleep during the day. This can lead to problems falling asleep in the evening.
7. Create a cozy and relaxing environment in your bedroom. There is no room for a TV or computer. The mattress on the bed and pillow should provide comfort and meet orthopedic standards. The bed should be associated with sleep, so it is strictly forbidden to watch TV, drink, or read on it. Be sure to ventilate the room before going to bed. Oxygen promotes falling asleep quickly and healthy sleep.
8. Good dream indicates a day well spent. Spend daylight hours actively, do not neglect physical exercise and walks in the fresh air.
9. Avoid eating before bed. It is recommended to eat the last time no later than 2 hours before bedtime. Moreover, dinner should not be plentiful.
10. Smoking, drinking coffee, alcohol closer to the time of falling asleep interfere with healthy sleep. Give it up for the sake of your health.

What are the dangers of lack of sleep?

So, we found out that a person needs to sleep 6–8 hours a day. Now let's see what a lack of sleep can lead to - disruption of sleep duration. If short sleep enters the system, we are faced with the dangerous phenomenon of chronic sleep deprivation. The habit of many today includes short sleep during the week. On weekends, a person supposedly compensates for the lack of sleep by sleeping until 12–13 o’clock in the afternoon. Alas, this not only does not make up for what was lost, but also worsens the picture. Doctors gave this phenomenon the name “sleepy bulimia.”

Consequences of lack of sleep:

• decreased immunity;
• decreased performance, concentration, memory;
• cardiovascular diseases;
• headache;
• obesity (the body, as if in defense, tries to make up for the lack of energy with extra calories);
• in men, due to lack of sleep, testosterone levels decrease by 30% (the belly begins to grow even in thin men, and there is a risk of inflammation of the prostate gland);
• the level of the stress hormone cortisol increases;
• Depression and insomnia may develop;

The main danger of lack of sleep is the disruption of the body's normal biological rhythms. During the day, each organ and system has its own periods of activity and rest. Chemical reactions occur inside the body, which also depend on biorhythms. Violation of sleep and wakefulness and the duration of rest leads to very serious internal disorders, the cause of which is desynchronosis. Unfortunately, the list of disorders that can result in desynchronosis is not limited to those listed above.

Up to a certain point, a person can cope with lack of sleep by changing his lifestyle through an effort of will. However, over time, chronic lack of sleep can lead to sleep disturbances that one cannot cope with.

What are the types of sleep disorders?

• Insomnia (insomnia) - a person has difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep.
• Hypersomnia is unhealthy sleepiness.
• Parasomnia - sleepwalking, night terrors and nightmares, bedwetting, epileptic seizures at night.
• Situational (psychosomatic) insomnia is insomnia of an emotional nature that lasts less than 3 weeks.
• Presomnia disorders - when a person has difficulty falling asleep.
• Intrasomnia - frequent awakenings;
• Post-somnia disorders - disorders after waking up, fatigue, drowsiness.
• Sleep apnea - slowing and stopping of breathing during sleep (the patient himself may not notice anything)
• Bruxism is a spasm of the masticatory muscles during sleep - the jaw clenches, the person grinds his teeth.

Sleep disturbances can lead to cardiovascular and endocrine systems, obesity, decreased immunity, irritability and decreased memory, muscle pain, cramps, tremors.

If you have sleep-related problems, you should consult a neurologist or psychotherapist.

Is long sleep beneficial?

Well, if lack of sleep is so harmful, we think, then we need to sleep a lot. Sleeping 10–15 hours a day is considered excessive. It turns out that both lack of sleep and too much sleep are equally harmful to humans. long sleep. When there is an excess of the sleep hormone, a person very quickly begins to become overtired. It happens that such people say: the more I sleep, the more I want.

This happens due to the fact that the same biological rhythms of the body are upset. As a result, the level of hormones necessary for healthy life. Such people feel a lack of strength, laziness and apathy. As with lack of sleep, too much sleep reduces performance, and all this can lead to depression.

Often a person chooses sleep, consciously avoiding important matters, problems and traumatic situations. This further worsens his condition and relationships with loved ones, because these problems do not go away, but only accumulate like a snowball.

Physically, excessive sleep can lead to more frequent migraine attacks, stagnation of blood in the vessels, increased blood pressure, swelling, etc.

Conclusion

Sleep time norms are conditional, since each person has their own time frame for the rest period. Some people need 6 hours, and some need at least 8. However, we need to know the average in order to build our regime correctly.

It is also necessary to say that life sometimes puts us in situations in which a person is forced to sleep little. Usually such periods do not last long. After this, it is vital to get enough sleep to restore physical and emotional strength. In such cases, as well as in illness, long sleep is a cure. However, most often the person himself changes his regime, deliberately not getting enough sleep or oversleeping, causing harm to his body.

People rarely think about such a concept as “sleep standards and how much sleep a person should ideally have.” If he gets up in the morning cheerful and well-rested, then it would seem that it makes no difference whether the person slept for five, seven or ten hours. However, there are medically proven averages for healthy sleep duration, which may fluctuate for subjective reasons.

Definition and rules of healthy sleep

From the first days of a little person’s existence, they begin to accustom him to a daily routine, developing such concepts as “day is the time of wakefulness” and “night” is “rest time.” These behavioral reactions and sleep norms are further reinforced for life.

But life is not a courier train moving exactly on schedule. Therefore, over time, the duration and norm of rest undergo changes. What should healthy sleep be like, how much sleep does a person need per day to feel rested, productive and energetic?

During sleep, many biochemical processes occur that have a beneficial effect on all human organs and systems, relieving the mental and physical fatigue accumulated during the day, and toning the body as a whole. Actions aimed at improving the quality of sleep are the key to its fullness and consistency.

Healthy sleep - principles of its formation

The mechanism of strong normal dreams is based on a number of observations, advice and recommendations from sleep specialists.

1. Maintaining a daily routine. Try every day, regardless of weekends and vacation periods, to go to bed at night and get up in the morning at the same time. This promotes strict adherence to your internal biological clock - biorhythms. A good example villagers can serve - the centuries-old rural way of life with agricultural and livestock concerns has developed in them the habit of going to bed at sunset and getting up at dawn. Of course, these days, especially in urban environments, such a schedule is unattainable, but the very principle of consistency in the hours of going to bed and getting up in the morning is important here.
2. Optimal sleep duration. A healthy adult should sleep, according to scientists, at least 7-8 hours. However, sleep time is not the only indicator that determines its benefits. The quality component is also important, because healthy rest is sleep without waking up, lasting continuously. Therefore, a person often feels completely asleep, falling asleep even for 5-6 hours, than if he slept for 8-9 hours, but restlessly and intermittently. However, it is generally accepted that healthy sleep should last 6-8 hours.
3. Waking up in the morning should not be accompanied by a long rise, you should not lie in bed for a long time - there is a chance of falling asleep again. You can stretch a little to stretch your joints and limbs, and cheer yourself up a little before the start of the working day.
4. The last hours before leaving for the kingdom of dreams should be spent in a calm, minor-key atmosphere. It is better to refuse action-packed films, programs with high intensity of emotions or negative news. There is no need to be physically active. Thoughts, feelings, all human organs must come to a state of harmony and peace.
5. You should not sleep during the day, especially for those who have problems falling asleep. True, 15-20 minutes of light dozing often gives strength and clarity of thought, so an afternoon siesta is a purely individual matter.
6. Physical activity, emotions, worries should fill the daylight hours. In the evening, you need to create a relaxing environment, with a light, light dinner, at least 2 hours before diving into the arms of Morpheus. Alcohol, smoking, coffee are the main enemies of healthy sleep.

A comfortable bed, cool air in the bedroom, a positive attitude, complete darkness in the room - these factors will help you fall asleep quickly and peacefully.

Average sleep duration norms

It should be immediately clarified that advice on how much sleep a person needs per day is given for healthy people. For patients, long-term rest is necessary; it itself is a healing agent for restoring and increasing the body’s defenses, to combat the disease.

If we consider the recommended sleep duration of 6-7-8 hours, then, based on the individual characteristics of the body, 5 hours is enough for someone to wake up alert and rested (Napoleon can serve as an example). The famous German physicist Einstein needed at least 10-12 hours to get enough sleep.

A person, based on his own feelings, well-being and observations of his health, decides how much sleep he needs.

And although the duration of dreams is influenced by the human factor and subjective reasons, for the average citizen the figure of 8 hours is the most acceptable. In addition, the optimal duration of sleep varies depending on the age and gender of a person.

Variability of sleep depending on age and gender

American scientists from the National Foundation, which solves somnological problems, have developed recommendations regarding the required number of hours of rest for various age groups. Inverse relationship between age and sleep duration is clearly demonstrated in the table.

In addition, it was found that fluctuations in sleep duration negatively affect its quality and a person’s well-being. That is, the same number of hours of rest promotes physical and spiritual health.

Men and women require approximately the same amount of time for healthy sleep – 8 hours. Finnish medical scientists calculated to the minute the required number of hours for men - 7 hours 42 minutes, for women the time was 7 hours 38 minutes. The data was determined based on a survey of 3,700 respondents of both sexes.

However, there is another point of view: a woman needs at least 8 hours to fully recover, while a man needs 6.5-7 hours.

This postulate is justified by the differences brain activity among representatives of the stronger and weaker sex. It has been proven that women have more complex brain activity, they are able to simultaneously solve several problems and process information 5 times faster than their male counterparts. And since sleep is a time for “rebooting” the neurons of the brain, women need additional time to resume active activity.

Regardless of the gender of the person, those whose work is related to the decision complex tasks and making important decisions, require longer rest periods than employees with less responsible responsibilities.

The most useful time period for sleep

People who prefer to go to bed long after midnight and get up at 10-11 o'clock in the afternoon believe that they fully satisfy the need for proper rest. But this is far from true. The centuries-old experience of our ancestors indicates that it is most beneficial to go to bed 3-4 hours after sunset.

A table of the value and importance of sleep has been compiled, and according to it:

• The time from 22 o'clock is the stage of revival of the central nervous system.
• The dawn hours from 4 to 5 am are the time of Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, a symbol of the new coming day.
• The next hour symbolizes harmony and peace.
• The period from 6.00 to 7.00 is a period of freshness and vigor.

Thus, effective time for night recovery it’s hours before midnight. During this time period, the regeneration of nerve cells throughout the body occurs, and sleep has a rejuvenating and healing effect.

Is sleeping during the day good or bad?

A number of European countries, especially Mediterranean countries, practice an afternoon siesta - a short afternoon rest. Of course, this is also due to the peculiarities of the climate (it’s hard to work in the midday heat), but it was also noticed that even a short half-hour rest gives a new influx of energy, increases visual and mental concentration, and improves performance.

In this case, the main thing is not to overdo it. Optimal time for a daytime nap – no more than 30 minutes. Prolonged daytime sleep leads to an imbalance in a person's biological clock, causing headaches, lethargy and apathy. Yes, and at night you will have difficulty falling asleep.

Many beliefs are associated with a bad dream at sunset. The time between 16 and 17 hours is considered the worst for rest, because according to the legends of the ancient Slavs, the sun, going beyond the horizon, draws out and takes away the energy of a sleeping person. During this period, Morpheus does not increase strength, but shortens the hours of life; the person gets up not rested, but exhausted. To believe or not to believe in myths is everyone’s business, but doctors do not recommend sleep during this time period. Even if you really want to sleep, it is better to wait, endure and go to bed closer to night.

Lack of sleep or oversleeping - two phenomena with negative consequences

As we know, there are 24 hours in a day. In the case of a person’s daily routine, the rule of three eights applies: 8 hours for work, 8 for rest, and the remaining 8 for sleep. Eight hours of sleep for work is a constant established by labor legislation. But with the remaining two eights, any transformations occur. The hours of rest at night are subject to especially great changes. People either solve everyday problems by sleeping, or prefer to escape from problems by plunging into night dreams.

The result is lack of sleep or oversleeping. Both have Negative influence on the body.

• Lethargy, apathy, isolation.
• A decrease in the production of serotonin - the hormone of joy, as a result, a depressive complex develops, a person becomes nervous and irritable.
• Decreased performance, analytical abilities, and logical thinking.
• There are signs of external aging and deterioration in physical fitness.
• Problems with the health of all organs and systems.

Consequences of oversleeping:

• Depression, drowsiness, which causes a person to fall into oblivion again.
• Pain of a neuralgic and somatic nature, since the normal oxygen supply to the bloodstream is disrupted, plus a long position of the body in one position causes numbness in the limbs and muscles.
• Poor physical activity leads to weight gain excess weight.

There was even a Russian proverb about the danger of long sleep: He who sleeps the most lives the least.

As can be seen from a comparison of two negative disorders of somnological behavior, it is most useful to stick to the golden mean and practice 7-8 hours of rest. Healthy, full sleep indicates the clear and well-established functioning of human organs and systems; any disorders, especially chronic ones, serve as an indicator of the manifestation of malfunctions in the functioning of the body, which cannot be ignored.

For Randy Gardner, a perfectly normal 17-year-old high school student, the mental arithmetic task is a no-brainer. The neurologist asked him to subtract seven from the number 100, then another, and so on. But Gardner only got to 65 and fell silent. The questioner waited a minute, and then wondered why he didn’t count further. “What should I count?” - the young man asked. He had already forgotten what they asked him about.

Gardner had never had this problem before mental problems. And now? The neurologist writes: “Face without expression, unclear speech, lacking intonation; you have to encourage him to talk in order to get at least some answer.” What happened to the handsome young man from the Californian city of San Diego? Everything is very simple: he wants to sleep, as probably no one has ever wanted to. After all, Gardner has been awake for the 11th day in a row; he has not slept for 250 hours. He needs to endure just one more night, and he will achieve his goal: he will be included in the Guinness Book of Records as the person who stayed awake the longest in the world. Perhaps after the fifth subtracted seven, fatigue turned him off short term memory, as happens to people in a state of senile dementia. Or maybe he just fell asleep for a split second. This is too short a period of time for the interlocutor to notice anything, but enough to erase the arithmetic problem from memory.

This was in 1965. Somnology as a science was still in its infancy. No one knew then that experimental animals died from prolonged sleep deprivation. It never occurred to anyone that an extremely tired brain provides itself with the necessary unconscious state with the help of microsleep. Accordingly, no one realized that without monitoring the electrical activity of the brain it was impossible to truly determine whether a person was falling asleep or not. Therefore, from the point of view of today's science, what Gardner did on himself is not a pure experiment. How great was his internal need for sleep at the moment when he forgot the arithmetic problem remains unknown. However, this story eloquently tells about what happens to a monstrously sleep-deprived person.

Records of Gardner's condition were kept by neurologist John Ross at the Naval Hospital in San Diego. Together with his colleagues, he undertook to observe the experiment that the young man started. Already on the second day of sleep deprivation, the psychiatrist noticed young man signs of extreme fatigue: Gardner had difficulty focusing his eyes on one object and recognizing things by touch. On the third day, the patient fell into depression; on the fourth, he first began to experience memory loss and an inability to concentrate. Then the young man developed problems with sensory perception; he mistook a traffic sign for a person, and himself for a famous football player. However, we are not talking about psychotic hallucinations - Gardner quickly and independently notices his mistake. IN next days symptoms intensify. The young man's speech slows down. He cannot remember the names of the simplest objects. Memory lapses are becoming more and more pronounced.

But he still set a hitherto unsurpassed world record. 264 hours later, that is, exactly 11 days, Gardner gives the legendary press conference at 5 am, which William Dement recalls in his book “Sleep and Health”: “Standing at the console, lined with microphones, Randy resembled the President of the United States. He performed flawlessly, never stuttering or falling into unintelligible muttering. After the press conference, Randy went to bed."

He slept for almost 15 hours, after which he woke up cheerful and practically healthy. The next night, Gardner did not go to bed and even went to school the next morning. Over the next few days, the young man went to bed early and slept longer than usual. But soon everything became business as usual again. The fact that the effects of sleep deprivation are reversible was confirmed almost two decades later by Allen Rechtschaffen. In his rats, lack of sleep also did not cause long-term harmful consequences, if they were released from the experimental apparatus in time and allowed to sleep.

Somnologist Dement personally observed the young man most of the time, helping him to remain alert in the second half of the night, when the need for sleep is especially noticeable. To distract themselves, they played basketball and other games. On the last night, Gardner beat the professor several more times at pinball.

The real problems with staying awake began on the third night. From this point on, Gardner increasingly became irritable, moody and absent-minded or, conversely, fell into apathy and practically did not respond to attempts to communicate. Sometimes the young man resembled a somnambulist, writes Dement. Today, the scientist suggests that at such moments his overtired ward, especially if he closed his eyes for a second, was actually asleep. Without these sleep attacks, which could be detected on an EEG, Gardner likely would not have been able to go so long without real sleep.

However, Dement, unlike neurologist John Ross, argues that Gardner did not at any time show symptoms of real psychosis: "His momentary errors and delusions can easily be attributed to extreme fatigue." Therefore, to this day it is believed that sleep deprivation does not cause serious mental problems.

Modern experiments in which sleep deprivation was more precisely controlled are more alarming. Among the Israeli soldiers who were deprived of sleep for four days, some (a relatively small percentage) suffered from so-called “sleep deprivation psychosis” during the nights when the need for sleep was greatest. During the day mental disorders disappeared, and the soldiers coped with their duties perfectly. This picture is confirmed by other experiments in which people with extreme sleep deprivation showed obvious psychotic disorders, such as hallucinations, persecutory delusions, extreme aggressiveness or deep depression. All these phenomena, at least in a weakened form, were observed in a 17-year-old schoolboy from San Diego.

But regardless of the outcome of a purely academic debate on whether to recognize what sleep deprivation does to people as a mental illness, not a single serious doctor today would agree to an eleven-day experiment of this kind. The extreme limit of what is acceptable during sleep deprivation in humans is now considered to be four days. Then the health risk becomes too great.

People are not experimental animals. It would never occur to anyone to test on people how long they can live without sleep and what will happen to them. And so it is clear that such an experiment would have catastrophic results. To be sure of this, just look at the studies that meticulously record the condition of people who have not slept for only two or three days in a row.

For them, like Randy Gardner, the reliability of sensory perception is disrupted, performance declines, memory, and the ability to concentrate and judge deteriorate. The calm mood disappears, the mood deteriorates. It’s not for nothing that sleep disorders are one of the possible reasons clinical depression. All these symptoms are associated, according to experts, with an increasing need for sleep. Their totality is simply called sleep deprivation syndrome. This also includes the growing risk of falling asleep for a few seconds at the most inopportune moment in broad daylight - and even more so at night. Such an attack can be noticeably longer than microsleep, and it is quite enough for, for example, while driving, to lose control of the car.

However, sleep deprivation does not have to be a one-time occurrence. It can accumulate gradually, in the form of increasing deficiency night after night. In people who for a long time they do not get enough sleep, that is, they suffer from chronic lack of sleep, and in the end the same symptoms appear as those who have not slept for a day or two in a row.

At first, these people do not notice that their performance has decreased. Tests in which the researchers compared the results achieved with the subjects' self-esteem showed alarming discrepancies. Overtired people consider themselves still quite vigorous when their results no longer meet the norm. In this - and not only in this - they are similar to drunks: after 17 hours without sleep, we cope with tests as poorly as with 0.5 ppm of alcohol in the blood. A person who gets up at 7 o’clock in the morning already gets behind the wheel “drunk” around midnight. After a day of sleep deprivation, our reaction rate drops to the values ​​​​that a well-rested person shows with 1 ppm of alcohol in the blood.

Only when a huge sleep deficit has accumulated over many days do people begin to realize that something is wrong with them. Moreover most cannot pinpoint the reason. They say something vague like “I’m feeling lethargic,” “I’m feeling a little unwell,” “I’m under a lot of stress right now,” or “I’m really in a spin.” Almost no one realizes that they are simply not getting enough sleep.

IN best case scenario overtired people at some point experience physical malaise, headaches and even a slight rise in temperature. They decide they have a cold and go to bed for a day or two. If they manage to get enough sleep during this time, their performance returns in full. In the worst case, the problem turns into a life-threatening situation for themselves and those around them - both due to more frequent bouts of second sleep, often leading to accidents on the road, and due to a decreased ability to make the right decisions.

People with a severe sleep deficit make mistakes more often, they are unbearably irritable, and even during the day they often fall asleep for a moment. Professional drivers who suffer from so-called daytime sleepiness due to untreated sleep disorders are legally disqualified from carrying out their work. Monstrous behavior sometimes observed among soldiers in war - brutal war crimes, attacks on their own units or massacres civilian population- from the point of view of experts, this is also partly explained by the growing lack of sleep every day.

A 2002 US Army study tested elite troops before and after a three-day combat exercise. A frightening decline in performance caused by lack of sleep has been shown. Some soldiers slept only an hour during the 73 hours of training. When tested for their ability to make quick decisions after the maneuvers, they made an average of 15 errors, and before the start of the exercises they made only one or two. “The results were worse than if they were drunk.”, said study leader Harris Lieberman.

It's not just soldiers who suffer from sleep deprivation syndrome. “Chronic lack of sleep is common and has many various reasons. Among them are medical (for example, constant pain or sleep disorders), unfavorable work conditions (such as long work hours or night shifts), and social or household responsibilities,” says David Dinges, one of the leading experts on sleep deficiency at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he works and his no less venerable colleague Hans Van Dongen.

In 2003, they published the impressive results of an interesting experiment: 48 young healthy people with a completely normal, average need for sleep slept for 2 weeks, some for only 4, some for 6, some for 8 hours. While awake, they slept every two hours. tests for attention, memory and reaction speed. Only those who slept for 8 hours showed high results. In other groups, indicators continuously worsened to last day experiment, and those who slept for 4 hours were approximately twice as fast as those who slept for 6 hours.

After two weeks, the performance of those who slept for 4 hours was in the same deplorable state as that of those who did not sleep for two days in a row. Those who lived in a 6-hour sleep mode reached the state of people who had not slept for a day. The researchers noted “progressive neurocognitive dysfunction of the systems responsible for long-term attention span and working memory” in the subjects.

Therefore, super-busy managers or TV presenters who say that 4 hours of sleep is enough for them are most likely mistaken. This error is natural, as Dinges and Van Dongen found out: apparently, the subjective fatigue that we feel when we don’t get enough sleep for several days in a row lags far behind the decline in our mental abilities.

Analyzing a test in which the subjects themselves assessed the degree of their drowsiness, scientists obtained completely unexpected results. Around the fifth day, subjects who did not get enough sleep each night stopped feeling any increase in fatigue compared to the previous night. The homeostatic component of sleep regulation reached saturation in them and did not rise further. It even seemed that their body had become accustomed to the reduced amount of sleep. Indeed, after two weeks, although they were still not allowed to get enough sleep, they no longer complained of serious drowsiness. Those experimental subjects who had to stay awake for two days in a row felt incomparably worse.

The conclusion is frightening: lack of sleep makes us stupid - and we don’t even notice it. In recent years, more and more experiments have been carried out confirming that not only the body, but also the intellect needs sleep for normal functioning. Neuroscientists now see one of the most important tasks of sleep as helping the nervous system process impressions received during the day. This process takes time for the brain. If he doesn’t have enough time, our mind obviously suffers.

It has long been known that people who do not get enough sleep are mentally retarded, do not study as well, and remember worse. Some scientists even suggested not allowing people to sleep after a traumatic event, so that they would quickly forget the experience and their psyche would not be damaged. Lack of sleep is especially harmful for schoolchildren. Those who suffer from sleep disorders tend to perform below average in school. If this problem is corrected, academic performance usually improves. Two studies conducted in the United States in 2005 and 2006 clearly showed that children who have severely disturbed sleep due to severe bouts of snoring very often deviate from the norm. Overwork manifests itself in them as hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, and sometimes aggression. A surprising number are even diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). After successful snoring therapy, children's behavior improves significantly.

In the first study, doctors at the University of Michigan removed the tonsils of 22 children with ADHD - the most common reason snoring in children. A year later, the diagnosis of ADHD remained in only half of those operated on. The second study, conducted by New York doctors, compared the results of 42 children whose tonsils were removed because of snoring with the same control group, where this operation was performed for other reasons. Before surgery, children with sleep disorders were significantly more likely to exhibit deviant behavior. After three months, test scores in the group of former snorers improved significantly and approached those in the control group.

Thomas Alva Edison invented the electric light bulb back in 1879. However, electric light did not immediately penetrate into the homes of ordinary citizens. Therefore, back in 1910, people went to bed early and spent an average of 9 hours a day in bed. Now, according to a survey, the average German sleeps only 7 hours and 8 minutes. He goes to bed at 10:47 p.m., falls asleep some time later, and wakes up between 6 and half past six. Before going to bed, he either spends time watching TV or continues his daytime activities under electric light.

Chronobiologist Anna Wurtz-Justice, head of the Basel Sleep Laboratory where I had my somnogram, believes that this trend often ultimately leads to health problems: “Modern people sleep on average an hour less than 20 years ago. Perhaps many of the so-called “diseases of civilization” are long-term consequences of such development.” Indeed, growing evidence indicates that chronic sleep deprivation leads to metabolic disorders. Obviously, the body needs a long night's rest so that the continuous chain of signals of finely balanced hormones has time to complete its work.

Lack of sleep affects carbohydrate metabolism and the hormonal system in the same way as normal aging processes, Karina Spiegel and Eva Van Cauter from Chicago found out in 1999. In their experiment, four healthy young people slept only 4 hours for six days in a row. As a result, their blood test looked as bad as it usually happens in people in a pre-heart attack state or on the brink of diabetes. “Lack of sleep appears to increase the severity of chronic age-related diseases.”, the researchers concluded. In other words: those who sleep little age faster.

Neurotransmitters such as insulin, leptin and ghrelin, as well as hormones thyroid gland and the adrenal cortex, constantly provide a balanced level of internal energy, adapted to the needs of the body, at which our organs can work optimally. During sleep, growth hormone launches a program of comprehensive renewal of the body. New cells are born in the body and it spends significant energy on this. And since we do not eat at this time, fat is burned first from energy reserves in the abdomen, buttocks and thighs. Therefore, synthetic growth hormone, which promotes weight loss and rejuvenation, has gained notoriety as a popular doping in strength sports.

Perhaps athletes, instead of taking doping, should simply sleep more and deeper. After all, if there is not enough time for the complex process of night metabolism, or if we sleep too irregularly, the entire system can go wrong. “Many studies now confirm that Lack of sleep and metabolic disorders are linked" says Wurtz-Justice. A smiling, energetic woman, a native of New Zealand, makes a frighteningly serious face. And she's right: her words mean that, for example, obesity, diabetes or cardiovascular disease are becoming more common, partly because we are sleeping less and more erratically.

The combination of three diseases, which doctors call metabolic syndrome, has become especially frequent in recent years. Patients are overweight, have sharply elevated serum lipids and blood pressure, and are prone to diabetes mellitus. Is it a coincidence that this trend appeared simultaneously with a general reduction in sleep time?

Most likely no. In Holland, a group of neuroscientists led by Ruud Buijs from the Amsterdam Institute of Neurobiology has been researching the causes of metabolic syndrome for several years. They were able to find convincing evidence that what is common in all the varied manifestations of this disease, which affects a quarter of the population in the United States, is a failure in the control of metabolism by the biological clock. Buis's conclusion in a nutshell is: whoever sleeps poorly and always different time, the internal rhythms of the body become disrupted, and this can lead to metabolic disorders.

As for excess weight, no one now doubts its direct connection with lack of sleep. In recent years, many scientists have proven in a variety of experiments that people who sleep very little or poorly are more likely than others to suffer from obesity *.

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* This is just one of many factors, and by no means the most important: if a person sleeps little but moves a lot, then, on the contrary, he will lose weight.

Shahrad Taheri of Stanford University in California has shown, for example, that the body mass index (BMI, body weight divided by height squared) in people who sleep less than 8 hours a night increases in direct proportion to sleep debt. Hormones that regulate appetite probably play a decisive role in this: people who sleep too little have increased blood levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin, and decreased levels of leptin, which curbs appetite.

This is not surprising, since during sleep the body suppresses the secretion of ghrelin and increases leptin so that hunger does not wake us up at night. If a person doesn't get enough sleep, too much ghrelin is produced, which encourages you to eat more than you need. Emmanuel Mignot, head of the Stanford research group, agrees: “Our study demonstrates a significant connection between sleep and metabolic hormones. In developed countries, where chronic sleep deprivation is common and food is readily available,” the observed effects “play a critical role in the widespread prevalence of obesity.”

Chronobiologist Rud Buijs has discovered a direct connection between the central internal clock in the hypothalamus and a nearby area of ​​the brain called the nucleus arcuatus, which is responsible for regulating appetite. “It turns out that hormones circulating in the body affect the suprachiasmatic nuclei, and their changes, in turn, immediately modify the activity of the nucleus arcuatus,” he told colleagues at a neurobiology conference in 2006.

This alarming trend does not spare children either: Canadian scientists from the University of Laval in Sainte-Foy found in 2006 that children aged 5-10 years who slept only 8-10 hours a day were 3.5 times more likely to be overweight than their peers who received the required 12-13 hours of sleep at this age.

That same year, at a congress in San Diego, the results of the largest survey to date on the topic “sleep and sleep” were presented. overweight" The sheer volume of data processed makes it worth paying special attention to: Sanjay Patel, a physician at the University of Cleveland, and his colleagues analyzed data from 68,000 nurses who were surveyed every two years about sleep duration and weight from 1986 to 2000. Moreover, thanks to the huge number of respondents, it was possible to take into account the effect of the individual amount of sleep on weight, since other significant factors in the groups identified by this criterion did not differ - be it height, age, sports activity, or the quantity and quality of food.

Women who slept five hours or less a day weighed an average of 2.5 kg more at the beginning of the survey than those who slept seven hours. Ten years later, the weight difference had increased to 3.25 kg. “These numbers don't seem particularly large, but we're talking about averages,” explains Patel. Some women gained significantly more weight during the survey. In particular, those nurses who slept only five hours were three times more likely to gain 15 kg. And even with six hours of sleep, there was still an increased risk of very large weight gain.

Long-term lack of sleep affects not only metabolism and energy. Endocrinologist Eva Van Cauter proved back in 1992 that when sleep deprived in human body significantly less growth hormone is produced. It means that lack of sleep reduces the entire system internal organs possibility of night regeneration. Such a reduction can lead to diseases at almost all levels. If organs do not have enough time and material to replace old or diseased cells with new ones, they will inevitably perform less well and their resistance to disease will be reduced.

The same phenomena underlie the ancient folk wisdom that the most beneficial thing for a patient is sleep. Probably everyone has experienced this: you go to bed sick, sleep unusually deeply and for a long time, and wake up healthy. It is not in vain that during illness or recovery period After surgery, our need for sleep is much higher than usual. The body needs additional time, and possibly additional amounts of growth hormone, to renew itself. Sleep is the patient’s sacred duty!

There is a lot of evidence for these words. Rats that Allen Rechtschaffen did not allow to sleep soon became covered with non-healing wounds. And that the growth hormone, produced by the body only in the deep sleep phase, plays a decisive role in this, was proven in 2005 by a group of American researchers led by dermatologist Ladan Mostaghimi. In their experiments, rats were slightly damaged in their skin, and each time they were woken up during BS, but were not disturbed in deep sleep - and the wounds healed at the same speed as in animals that had slept normally.

One of the body's most important systems, fueled every night by sleep, is the immune system. Physiologists have always believed that lack of sleep weakens resistance to disease - and vice versa, that is precisely why we sleep so much during infectious diseases like the flu, because the immune system works with special stress at this time. It was believed that during sleep it kills and eliminates pathogens and produces healing neurotransmitters and antibodies, and also activates lymphocytes.

“Strangely enough, there is very little experimental evidence for this assumption,” says Jan Born, a neuroscientist and hormone specialist from Lübeck. True, people whom doctors deliberately infected with acute respiratory infections viruses got sick more often and more severely if they slept little. Allen Rechtschaffen's laboratory rats, despite extreme sleep deprivation, fell ill infectious diseases no more often than animals from the control group.

Perhaps this is simply due to the fact that the animals were not examined properly. In any case, Rechtschaffen’s employee Carol Everson later repeated his experiments and received the exact opposite result: the immune system of animals that looked healthy at first glance was significantly weakened after 14 days without sleep. Already on the fifth day, the immune defense in Everson rats was unable to control microbial attacks. The researcher came to the following conclusion: “Prolonged sleep deprivation leads to infection of usually sterile internal tissues by pathogenic bacteria after just a few days.” If the experiment was delayed, the bacteria continued to multiply and the rats eventually died.

Some of the strongest evidence that sleep supports performance immune system, received a team of researchers from Lübeck, led by Jan Born. In 2003, Tanya Lange and her colleagues vaccinated 19 subjects against hepatitis. Some of the vaccinated were able to sleep normally after this, others agreed to stay awake the night and the next day. After 4 weeks, those who slept normally had almost twice as many antibodies to pathogens in their blood as the rest. While the function of sleep in direct resistance to infection is unclear, "the study's findings highlight the importance of sleep in the development of long-term immune defenses," the researchers wrote. On the other hand, now none of the experts doubts that lack of sleep leads to illness also because it opens the door to pathogens of infectious diseases.

Each of us sometimes has uncontrollably “stuck together” eyes. We all know that there is only one reasonable solution in this case: sleep. But reason rarely triumphs. Blind-eyed people drive around in cars. But eyelids drooping by themselves are an undoubted sign of drowsiness, which, as the pioneer of somnology Dement rightly noted, “is the last - and by no means the first - step on the path to falling asleep.” When our eyes close, we are actually no longer fully in control of ourselves. As a result, many drivers wake up in a ditch - while others never wake up.

“Should we recognize being behind the wheel in sleepy state an offense? Without a doubt! - demands Eilina Rosen, a sleep specialist from Philadelphia. In the United States, about 100,000 accidents caused by fatigue occur annually, the number of injured reaches 71 thousand people, and 1.5 thousand died. Property damage is estimated at billions of dollars. In Germany, the numbers look no better: according to a survey by the Association of German Insurance Companies, fatigue is the cause of 24% of fatal accidents on Bavarian roads. If we calculate the total number of deaths on German roads in 2005 (5,361 people), it turns out that falling asleep at the wheel claimed the lives of 1,287 people.

But still many people frivolously go on vacation by car on the evening of their last working day- the time at which attacks of drowsiness occur especially often. After all, people are often forced to work especially intensively before vacation and therefore sleep less than usual. Unnoticed, they accumulate a significant sleep deficit. And then the usual afternoon decrease in activity is enough for the driver to become dangerously drowsy.

What to do in such cases was determined in 1997 by Louise Rayner and Jim Horn from Lowborrow University in the UK. They checked various ways resistance to sleep and found the optimal combination: you need to get to the nearest parking lot, drink two cups of coffee or other drink with high content caffeine, and then lie down for a quarter of an hour. When tested in a driving simulator, it worked better than either product alone. Since the invigorating properties of caffeine appear only after half an hour, you can fall asleep without problems. And then short nap caffeine also does its job, and driving for at least the next two hours does not pose much of a risk.

This experiment definitively proved that caffeine is an effective stimulant that, when used correctly, can bring great benefits. Coffee enhances the arousal system in the brain, causing the same effect as interesting, distracting, stressful work or sports. It is no coincidence that William Dement, helping Randy Gardner survive, entertained him with games of basketball and pinball.

But by forcing the sleep center switch to remain in the “awake” position for an unnaturally long time, we run a big risk: the sleep deficit becomes larger and larger. Along with it, the danger of making a dangerous mistake the next day, and especially in the night that follows, increases. In addition, with chronic sleep deficiency, as described above, people become stupid, gain weight and get sick.

All this together, it would seem, should force everyone to carefully monitor the sufficient amount of sleep. But how do we know exactly how much sleep we are missing? How much sleep exactly does a person need? Somnologists have been looking for answers to these questions for many years.

Thomas Wehr, a psychobiologist at the American National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, wondered in the early 1990s. The question is what will happen if we give people the opportunity to sleep 14 hours every day. This would correspond to the natural situation that occurred every winter for thousands of years for our ancestors. Would people sleep for seven, eight or nine hours at a time, as in recent centuries, or would they return to the forgotten “hibernation”?

Wehr recruited 24 people for the study who spent four months sleeping in a sleep laboratory. During the day they were allowed to get up for 10 hours and do whatever they wanted. They had to spend the next 14 hours in bed in a darkened room. Apparently, at first the experimental subjects made up for the significant deficit and treated themselves to a real course of sleep therapy. On average, they slept more than 12 hours a day. This was a clear indication that they had previously - without noticing it - been significantly sleep deprived.“Nowadays no one knows what it means to be truly cheerful,” Ver notes. We must assume that most people accumulate over time no less a sleep deficit than his volunteers.

But sleep therapy had its effect. Gradually, the experimental subjects began to sleep less and after about four weeks they reached a value that did not change further at 8 hours 15 minutes. Everything indicates that this is the natural average human need for sleep, at least in the darker seasons. In the summer, when there are longer daylight hours, we probably need slightly less sleep than in the winter.

The results obtained by Ver are in good agreement with what somnologists have long considered the approximate daily human need for sleep to be 8 hours. If 100 years ago people spent 9 hours in bed, it can be assumed that the majority slept only 8 of them anyway.

But it would be a big mistake, from which the reader must be warned, to try to force yourself to sleep exactly 8 hours. For some this may be too little, but for others it may be too much. Each individual has their own need for sleep. “If we are healthy and nothing prevents us from sleeping as much as we want, the body will automatically take the necessary amount of sleep,” says sleep specialist Claudio Basetti, director of the neurological department at the University Hospital of Zurich. Our job is to provide suitable conditions. The need for sleep is partly determined genetically, and also depends on many other factors. Any numbers in the range from 5 to 10 hours are considered normal.

Therefore, those who sleep for a long time should not be ashamed of this, much less allow themselves to be called lazy. In the same way, people who cannot stay in bed for a long time should not pay attention to accusations of restlessness or excessive careerism. A person cannot do anything about his individual need for sleep.

However, those who claim that they get enough sleep in less than 5 hours or that they have not slept at all for a long time are usually mistaken. Famous short sleepers, such as Napoleon, who supposedly got by with four hours, or the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison, who sought to do without sleep at all, were deceiving themselves. Napoleon, apparently, suffered from a sleep disorder and therefore often fell asleep during the day. Edison, they say, also slept a lot during the daytime.

Somnologists constantly invite people to the sleep laboratory who claim that they hardly sleep. At the same time, it turns out with amazing regularity that patients fall asleep well at night, and sometimes sleep deep sleep several hours in a row. But they themselves stubbornly argue the opposite, and this is not surprising: in half sleep we lose the sense of time. Our waking hours seem incredibly long, while the hours spent asleep, on the contrary, fly by unnoticed. In principle, people do not register periods of sleep lasting less than 20 minutes. Interestingly, poor sleepers tend to underestimate how much they sleep, while healthy sleepers tend to report exactly how much sleep they get.

There are only three reliably documented cases of extremely short sleep in the literature: two men who got less than three hours of sleep per night, and Miss M, a 70-year-old former nurse from London, who actually slept only one hour a night. Cases where people regularly sleep for a very long time, more than ten hours, are much more common, but also make up an extremely small percentage of the total.

Short sleep is not always harmful to health. And for someone who already gets enough sleep, additional hours of napping, according to the latest data, will not bring any particular benefit. Only if you experience regular sleep deprivation, manifested, for example, in daytime sleepiness on weekdays and long naps on weekends, you need to find out, by experimenting on yourself, what your personal need for sleep is and compare with the amount of sleep that you can actually get.

To do this, during your vacation or vacation, you can give yourself sleep therapy, staying in bed every morning until there is not the slightest desire to sleep anymore, and in the evening still try to fall asleep at your usual time. After a few days, a more or less constant sleep time is established - like in the experimental subjects of Thomas Wehr - at which a person feels alert during the day and falls asleep easily in the evening.

As a result, not only does one feel better than before the vacation, but one also becomes clearer about one’s individual need for sleep. Those who want to maintain health and performance for a long time are advised to adhere to the data obtained. If it is impossible to conduct such an experiment on weekdays, it is worth keeping a sleep diary, noting all hours of both night and daytime sleep, in order to calculate the required sleep time at the end of the week. People whose required daily sleep time is 8 hours should get approximately 56 hours of sleep per week. If on weekdays they manage to sleep only 7 hours, it is advisable to somehow get 5 hours. You can achieve this by arranging, for example, four half-hour “quiet hours” a week, ten hours of sleep on Saturday and nine on Sunday.

Those who would like to sleep longer should think about what time is best for them to go to bed. After all, one person practically fails to wake up later than usual in the morning, while another finds it difficult to fall asleep early in the evening. The internal clock that runs in the body is to blame for this. different people at different rates, depending on which version of the clock genes we inherited from our parents. Although the biological clock adjusts its course according to daylight, so that in the end its day is almost always 24 hours, the time it shows is still usually slightly behind or slightly ahead of the real time.

Therefore, chronobiologists divide people into types, borrowing their names from the world of birds: people who prefer a nocturnal lifestyle are called owls, and those who like to get up early are called larks. Pronounced owls fall asleep later than ordinary people, because their biological time is somewhat behind the real one. In the morning, they can sleep for a very long time, especially in a darkened room, when the internal clock does not receive a signal from daylight to accelerate. Having finally woken up, they often still feel lethargic until noon, but in the evening they remain active and productive for an unusually long time. At night, the chronobiological component of general sleepiness increases so slowly that they can easily fall asleep only very late at night - at least if they have slept well in the morning and have not developed an unusually high need for sleep.

Larks, on the other hand, get tired early and get up early because their internal clock runs faster than usual. The opportunity to lie in bed longer does not give them any pleasure. As a rule, they still cannot sleep at this time and are annoyed that they uselessly missed the morning hours, when their productivity is especially high. If early risers need to sleep longer, they should go to bed earlier in the evening. Provided that their body really needs sleep, they will easily fall asleep at this time. It is better for owls to get up later in the morning.

Recently, the number of people with pronounced extreme chronotypes has been increasing, noted Munich chronobiologist Till Renneberg. At the same time, true owls, who go to bed around four in the morning, are much more common than pronounced larks, who already wake up at this time. These are the results of a large-scale survey in which 400 thousand people participated.

Apparently, most people are now at the mercy of a dangerous trend: as they go out into daylight less and less, the genetically determined pace of their biological clocks becomes critical. “Even on cloudy days, it is many times brighter outside than in well-lit offices. But because we work indoors, our rhythms become out of sync with outside world", warns Renneberg. In the past, people were much more likely to work outdoors. Therefore, extremely pronounced owls and larks were rare exceptions. “For most people, the following rule is true: the less daylight they receive, the later their body clock adjusts to real day. If we were all farmers and didn’t spend so much time in dimly lit workrooms, much fewer people would go to bed in the morning, but there would be fewer people whose eyes were already drooping at eight o’clock in the evening.”

The fact is that for our consciousness, electric light, despite its weakness, is a sign of day, while the chronobiological system perceives it at best as twilight. As a result, the physiological clock lacks that setting signal that chronobiologists in all languages ​​call the German word “Zeitgebers” - external time determinants. Because of this, the internal day and night agree with the real light and dark times of the day even worse than it is intended by nature. The result may be sleep disturbances.

It is not difficult to determine your chronotype yourself. To do this, you just need to calculate at what time on free days, for example, towards the end of a vacation, when the sleep deficit is minimal, the middle of sleep falls. If you sleep, for example, from midnight to eight o'clock in the morning, then the middle of sleep occurs at four. According to research by chronobiologists, this is the case for most people, and this chronotype is considered average.

There are also many intermediate types - more or less moderate owls or larks. Extreme owls - about one in twenty - reach mid-sleep only at half past seven in the morning or later. Pronounced larks - people whose biological clock, without a setting signal, completes the daily cycle in less than 24 hours - are especially rare: among those surveyed, only 2% were found to be such. The middle of their sleep occurs at two o'clock in the morning, regardless of whether they obey a work schedule or choose their bedtime freely. This is not surprising, since they usually get up in the morning on their own, long before the alarm goes off.

Most Germans tend to be the owl type. That's why they love long-haul flights in a western direction, for example from Germany to New York, because thanks to the difference in time zones, they finally feel a surge of energy in the morning and eat breakfast with the appetite that only early risers usually manage to do. In ordinary life, they are controlled by two oppositely directed time meters: “In the evening, sleep is shortened by the biological clock, and in the morning by the alarm clock,” says chronobiologist Till Renneberg. The later our chronotype, the worse these and other clocks agree with each other.

This serious problem for very large number people, insists Renneberg, who coined the term “social jetlag” for it: “It can be quite serious consequences for performance and health and is comparable to jet lag during long-distance flights, but it accompanies us throughout our lives.” People suffering from it go to bed later the slower their biological clock goes. But the alarm clock is not at all interested in their chronotype and reduces the duration of sleep the more strongly, the more pronounced the “owlness” is. A survey conducted by Renneberg yielded alarming results: “Almost two-thirds of people suffer from lack of sleep during the workweek.” And only a few manage to make up for the lack of sleep over the weekend.

In winter, the alarm clock rings too early for the vast majority. In the summer, when we generally get more light and the sun floods the room early in the morning, many people become more early risers and need less sleep overall.

Almost all chronobiologists criticize our working hours based on the data obtained. Contrary to the saying “early risers are early birds,” Renneberg notes, “larks are rare birds in modern society.” Experts are demanding changes in this area: work and school should start later, and a long break should be needed in the middle of the day to sleep or go out into fresh air. Employers will also benefit from this: the number of errors and accidents at work associated with lack of sleep will be reduced, and a number of diseases that cause great economic damage will occur less frequently.

Lack of sleep in pronounced owls reaches up to working week such values ​​that on free days they are able to sleep for 12 hours in a row and often remain in bed until one o'clock in the afternoon. The middle of their sleep thus shifts from 3-4 a.m. on weekdays to after 7 a.m. But people with a normal chronotype also suffer from starting their workday too early: they also have to get up earlier in the week than their body requires, and therefore on weekends they sleep about an hour longer than on workdays.

Larks face the opposite problem: Because their family and circle of friends are often dominated by owls, morning people have to stay up too long on weekends. Who will leave the guests before midnight because it is time to sleep, or refuse to go with his wife or husband to a late movie show? As a rule, early risers make up for their sleep deficit quite easily on weekdays.

Social jetlag hits teenagers and young adults with particular force. Due to their age, their biorhythms lag significantly behind real time. At the same time, it doesn’t matter at all whether young people are disco lovers or homebodies. They obey a biological, hormonally determined program of nocturnal activity and stay awake until well after midnight because they simply cannot do otherwise. True, parents and teachers have a different opinion. They say that young people don't go to bed on time because they are crazy about discos. The latest data from studies of biorhythms testify in favor of young “night owls”: at the age of about 20 years, people are active at night because - for reasons still unknown to science - they are so programmed by nature.

If a schoolchild who fell asleep late at night needs to cram formulas in the morning or foreign words, he will do it very poorly - both because of the colossal lack of sleep, and because of the biological clock, which still shows the time of sleep. “At eight o'clock, schoolchildren listen to the teacher in the middle of their subjective night,” says Till Renneberg. - Great benefit it doesn’t benefit learning.” Therefore, the start of classes in high schools must be moved to 9 o'clock. A survey conducted in Munich showed that children and adolescents are increasingly becoming night owls as they grow older. This phenomenon reaches extreme levels among school graduates and junior students.

And only with the end of adolescence does this trend suddenly reverse, and all people become closer to the lark type. This change in sleep patterns is a systematic process common to all of us and is probably due to hormonal changes.

Thus, Munich chronobiologists discovered reliable method, allowing us to determine the end of adolescence for each individual person. A change in the pace of the internal clock is the first "biological marker of the end of adolescence," says Renneberg. “Women reach the critical point at 19.5 years, and men at 20.5.” As in all other maturation processes, women are ahead of men here. Over the years, all people gradually approach “larks”.

Of course, genetic conditioning, superimposed on the biological characteristics of maturation, also plays a role. Therefore, there is some truth in the saying “ever a night owl will remain a night owl” - this is due to the inherited pace of the internal clock.

Strictly speaking, this rhythm can only be compared with peers. Even extreme owls become as close to larks in old age as, perhaps, only in early childhood. And pronounced larks at the end of adolescence enter a phase of unexpected nocturnal activity.

These results suggest that in vain many families religiously observe the custom of a common breakfast at 8 or 9 o’clock. By this time, grandparents were probably hungry for a long time and, having nothing else to do, managed to set the table for the whole family and go for fresh buns. Mom, a real early riser, had also just returned from her morning run. But the father is a typical night owl and the teenage children really need some more sleep. If you wake them up now, family breakfast will only bring quarrels and a bad mood.

What to do if the biological rhythms of members of the same family diverge too far, or if a person wants to change his chronotype in order to still get enough sleep? Here it is very important to go out into daylight at the right moments so that the time measurement center in the diencephalon receives the correct corrective signals.

People prone to nocturnal activity are advised not to close the curtains in the evening so that the first rays of the sun penetrate into the bedroom, speeding up the internal clock, which still shows night. For the same reason, it is advisable for owls to go outside as early as possible during the day, for example, walk to work or go for a run before breakfast. In the evening, on the contrary, it is better to avoid bright light so that the internal clock, already tuned to the onset of darkness, does not receive a signal to slow down. For example, when sitting on a cafe terrace after work in the summer, it is better to wear sunglasses. Strong early risers have the opposite program: they need to slow down their biological clock, and to do this, go outside more in the evening, and wear sunglasses in the morning.

The powerful effect of daylight on the internal clock can be supported by the successful timing of bodily signals emanating from the so-called peripheral clock in individual bodies. The timing of our meals and exercise is important here. Owls need to try, contrary to their inner feeling, not to eat too late in the evening and to be physically active. Larks are advised to do the opposite.

But you shouldn’t set yourself unattainable goals from the very beginning. It is important not to reset the internal clock as soon as possible, but to develop regular, uniform signals that change biorhythms in the long term, without disrupting their functioning. The most important thing is, if possible, to go outside at the same time, have breakfast, lunch and dinner, and also play sports; Moreover, this schedule should very gradually shift towards the desired chronotype.

The effort spent on such long-term lifestyle changes will pay off doubly: after all, along with social jetlag, not only chronic lack of sleep will disappear. At the same time, the need for unhealthy habits will decrease. “The stronger the social jetlag, the more often people reach for stimulants, and the more smokers there are,” Til Renneberg found.

So for many of us, getting more quality sleep will benefit us on many levels. And if you already have a suspicion that you suffer from sleep disorders, you shouldn’t put the matter off for a long time. Chronic sleep deficiency is very important to recognize in time and effectively eliminate.

How does sleep affect health in general and weight loss in particular? How much sleep do you need? How to improve your sleep schedule and get rid of insomnia? Read about all this in a new article.

With the modern rhythm of life, adequate sleep is considered a luxury and even an excess. After all, you need to have time to work, and chat with friends, and check your feed on all social networks, and generate new content for these same social networks, and go to fitness, and also take English courses, and go to a club, and...

Sleeping in this entire schedule seems like a pointless waste of time, an obstacle preventing you from reaching your fullest potential.

Is this true? Let's figure out how sleep, health and weight loss are interconnected.

During a night's rest, all recovery processes go faster. Ask an athlete, and he will say that it is during sleep that muscles strengthen and grow.
Ask a cosmetologist, and he will answer that during sleep, the skin absorbs nutrients better (for this reason, night and day creams can differ greatly in composition).

The role of sleep in our health is invaluable. It provides normal work nervous system, as every adult has repeatedly been convinced of - even one night without sleep, you can become irritable, gloomy, absent-minded and whiny. And regular lack of sleep leads to increased anxiety, decreased performance, neurosis and depression, and also greatly impairs memory.

A study conducted by Californian scientists at the San Francisco Institute showed that people who sleep more than 6 hours a day are 4 times less likely to get colds. Good sleep helps maintain a healthy heart and immune system.

However, you should not sleep too long, nor should you neglect sleep. According to research from the University of Cambridge, people who sleep more than 8 hours a night are almost 50% more likely to have a stroke. Excess sleep also reduces physical activity, provokes headaches and worsens the condition of the spine if there are already problems with it (the third thesis directly follows from the second).

How much sleep do you need?

Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that the optimal sleep duration is 6-8 hours a day. Moreover, in most cases, it is much better for the body if all these hours are “worked out” at night and in a row. People with a broken sleep schedule, who sleep 3-4 hours at night and the same amount during the day, are more susceptible to neuroses and depression.

But do not forget that there cannot be an ideal universal sleep regime - each body has its own needs. For example, during intense physical activity and during rehabilitation after illnesses and injuries, doctors recommend sleeping more.

Sleep and weight loss

Another good news: healthy sleep helps you lose excess weight. During sleep, somatotropin is more actively produced - growth hormone, which, among other things, also performs a fat-burning function. In addition, lack of sleep increases the level of ghrelin, the “hunger hormone.”

Therefore, if you don't sleep enough, the craving for overeating will not take long to occur. This doesn't mean that you will automatically get better if you start sleeping 12 hours. Proper nutrition and exercise is still necessary if you want to lose weight. But healthy sleep can become a reliable ally on the path to slimness.

Sleep and weight gain

Another one important function somatotropin - an increase in muscle volume (it’s not for nothing that it’s a growth hormone). With regular training, muscles need full recovery. It is sleep that provides good vacation, and stable growth. So, if you want to “pump up”, spend enough time not only in the gym, but also in bed.

How to get rid of insomnia and improve your sleep schedule?

2-3 hours before bedtime, stop interacting with any screens, be it a smartphone or TV. Better read a book, chat with your family, play with your pet
ventilate the room before going to bed
do not drink coffee and strong tea in the afternoon
remove unnecessary light and sound sources
Don't overeat or fast before bed
minimize stress (difficult, but worth it)

If you have been experiencing sleep problems for more than 2 weeks and the reasons for them remain a mystery to you, don’t look folk remedies and do not prescribe sleeping pills yourself. See a good doctor.