Understanding the process of sleep

Sleep is a natural physiological process. Our bodies are designed to do it. Then why do so many of us struggle with this basic human function?

So many of my clients report problems sleeping. This usually presents as having problems getting to sleep, waking periodically during the night, feeling like you aren’t getting enough sleep and not feeling rested on waking.

Is there are secret to the perfect night’s sleep?

Unfortunately, no but understanding the process of sleep can go a long way in reducing the anxiety and pressure that people feel around something our bodies should just do naturally.

Like many processes that occur in the body, hormones play a major role when it comes to sleep. Melatonin, our sleep hormone rises in the evening until midnight helping us to fall asleep. It has an inverse relationship to the hormone serotonin (our awake hormone) which takes over after midnight and keeps rising helping us to wake up in the morning while melatonin decreases.

During the evening as melatonin is rising our sleep cycles start to become dominant. A sleep cycle goes for an average of 90mins. And cycles through periods of depth and alertness throughout the night. So, during the evening when melatonin is rising helping us to feel sleepy, we get the opportunity to fall asleep roughly every 90mins. How do we know when this happening?

Quite simply our bodies give us sleep signs. We might start yawning, rubbing our eyes. Drifting off on the lounge. Sleep signs are different for everyone and it’s a worthwhile activity working out what yours is. Once you get your sleep sign it’s your decision if you decide to take advantage of that sleep cycle and go to bed. What happens if you miss that cycle?

Another one comes again in 90mins! There are so many reasons we might decide not to take advantage of a sleep cycle when it arrives. Not understanding the process of sleep can be one but also trading off sleep because you have too much to do or you’re halfway through binge watching something exciting on Netflix is highly likely. Understanding that trading off sleep is actually your choice can help you to regain some control over this process.

The other thing that can impact this process is the killing off of melatonin in the evenings. This happens with light exposure. Particularly blue light, which is emitted from electrical devices including phones, laptops, televisions etc. Most new devices automatically switch to an orange light (which stops this process) in the evenings or have settings that you can go into and change the back light. If this isn’t the case, what do you do?

Have a cut off time for devices in the evening. The longer the cut off time the better but that’s entirely up to you and your circumstances. Dim lighting is best in the evenings and no lighting is even better. Sleep likes you to be doing not much at all in preparation for it. Racing around the house and trying to get everything done and answering a bunch of emails and then stopping and expecting sleep to come easily is unrealistic. Some type of wind down period is necessary.

Another factor to consider is trying to get to sleep before midnight when serotonin our awake hormone starts to become more dominant than Melatonin. Generally, it will always be easier to get to sleep before midnight because of this process.

Understanding the process of sleep and the natural hormonal cycle that goes along with it can be incredibly beneficial for those like many who have problems sleeping but more often than not it is equally important to look at and address the choices we are making during the evening that may be interrupting this natural process.