Sleep session - Part 2

Hello!

As promised, here is the second report of the three sleep sessions offered by the student service center of my university! If you have not read the first, go see here. Today, I will talk more specifically about the functioning of sleep in the brain, how to induce drowsiness and, on the opposite, how to be more awake. Here we go!

Fonctionning in the brain

To understand the functioning of sleep, it is important to remember 3 organizing principles.

The first concerns neurons. Neurons are responsible for the activity of our brain and works much like a swicht (on-off). In fact, sleep is the state in which all neurons do the same things at the same time: in short, when they are in perfect synchronism. During sleep, the neurons discharge the energy they contained gradually and synchronously. This phenomenon takes around 30 minutes, the ideal duration of the going to sleep process. At the beginning of the sleep cycle, the neurons discharge into small groups that are not synchronized together and it is over time that the groups associate until total synchronism is obtained. Ok. It's very theoric and you're probably wondering why I'm telling all this stuff: it's coming! The better the synchronism, the deeper you sleep! In general, after an hour or an hour and a quarter, the neurons begin to desynchronize and this is the beginning of paradoxical sleep (THE DREAMS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !). The paradoxical sleep lasts about fifteen minutes and is followed by a micro-awakening, which is not supposed to be felt. This is not a complete awakening of the kind I-go-to-pee-in-the-middle-of-the-night. And then the neurons synchronize again and a new cycle begins. Small parenthesis: the longer the paradoxical sleep, the more chances there is of waking up. Moreover, do you know what influences the quality of synchronization? And yes! Melatonin, a concept I talked about during the last session.

Second organizing principle: drums please! Sleep is better at night than during the day. Yeah, well, I did not know that... (irony here) Basically, there are two processes governing sleep: the circadian process, whereby the body is programmed to function on a 24-hour cycle, and the homeostatic process, which refers to the accumulation of a sleeping sleeping debt that pushes the body to do the synchronization. If the accumulated sleep debt is not large enough, the sleep will be light. The ideal debt is 16 hours.

And the third organizing principle is being awake enough before going to bed, so not spending the day doing nothing in bed without having spent energy ...

Inducing drowsiness

This is simpler. To induce drowsiness, it is necessary to make sure to install a clear separation between the awakening activities and the sleep. Drowsiness is essential to fall asleep and it is possible to push the body to that state. A pre-sleep routine allows you to ignore awakening activities to focus on activities that promote sleep. I have already touched on this subject last week by mentioning that you should not expose yourself to blue light before going to bed. I come back with that today! What you do during the day, do not do it to try to fall asleep. And in addition, the pre-sleep activities should not take place in the bedroom. I confess to you right now that I do not respect that. I read in my bed before going to sleep because it works for me. I still mention the ideal, to be certain. Examples of pre-sleep routine (which should last 30 to 60 minutes) now: meditation, yoga, listening to quiet music, taking a long bath, getting a facial-manicure-pedicure, etc.

Have you ever woken up at night without being able to fall back to sleep? Me, yes and it's really unpleasant. When this kind of situation happens, the best solution is to do an attentional focus activity. It is about making the brain works the same way as when it is in sleep mode by directing your attention on one specific thing (not the cellphone, unfortunately :P ). For example, you can take a lined paper sheet and draw with a pencil over the lines as accurately as possible, or take a text and circle a particular letter in it (not reading the text, just looking for the letter).

Increase awakening

I really need these tricks! I fall asleep everywhere: on the train, the car, my desk ... The days of intense fatigue, I still can not afford to be idle, because the courses will not follow my mood to make me happy... And right now I will give a tip that will shock! EXPOSE YOURSELF TO BLUE LIGHT. Well yes, it is clear that if it is bad for sleeping because it wakes up, if you want to wake up... it is a solution! Also, Engage in awakening activities that are enjoyable and rewarding (such as allowing you to listen to an episode of Goblin on DramaFever mouhahaha). Or, take a short nap to allow yourself to continue the rest of the day. But beware! Not more than 30 minutes, as to not complete a cycle and not after 3 pm, to have enough time to accumulate a debt sufficient to sleep at night.

It's all for this week! I hope that even if you have lots of exams, you can sleep better. :) See you next week for the grand finale!

xoxox

Camille Élisabeth