Already in the morning when the alarm clock is going off the effects of a night with bad sleep are noticeable. More than 80 % of all grown-ups suffer under a chronical lack of sleep. And due to this lack of sleep, we are feeling weak and sluggish, already in the morning. Every night, the sleep debt is growing. It is already assuming proportions that are not caught up easily. In the long-term, a lack of seep leads to increased stress and exhaustion, it favors diseases and may even lead to depressions. Everyone who doesn’t wake up in the morning by himself – meaning, everyone who needs an alarm-clock – is suffering under a sleep debt.
So, ideally we would need no alarm-clock. The reason why nearly no-one is able to get up in the morning without one is that most of the time we go to bed too late. Out of this reason, the time of sleep is insufficient, the body not ready for getting up and hence needs on outside signal to do so. Clearly, this is not the solution for the problem of lack of sleep. More sleep is the only way to balance out this sleep debt. Often, you are feeling more refreshed in the morning when you go to bed only 15 minutes earlier. Generally, the total sleeping time should be long enough so that the 90 minutes lasting sleeping cycle can be passed through five times. During 7.5 hours you slip from light- into deep- and REM-sleep again and again. Ideally, you wake up by yourself when the cycle has been finished for the fifth time.
Apart from the length of the sleep, the quality is very important, too. If the quality is high, you are able to start into the day refreshed even when you haven’t slept sufficiently. When it comes to high-quality sleep, three factors are playing an important role: sleeping system, sleeping place and bedroom.
To say “Good bye” to disturbed sleep and get back to restful nights, you may orient yourself towards three guidelines.
- Since you are only able to balance out two hours of a sleeping debt during the weekend, you should go to bed 15 to 30 minute earlier, every day. Like this, you are able to settle the debt accumulated over years little by little. Additionally, two or three power naps per day (five to ten minutes each, the longest) are able to enormously increase your performance.
- The next step is to check whether your sleeping place fulfills all requirements of the healthy-sleep-concept . A natural sleeping system, a disturbance-free sleeping place and a harmonious room climate are crucial for the quality of your sleep.
- Furthermore, you should check your sleep efficiency. To reach a high efficiency, you should actually sleep 97-98% of the time you spend in bed. Don’t give up, if your score is not that high yet! Every single percent decides about how well rested you get up the next morning! All you need is the right combination of sleep duration, quality and efficiency to sleep through undisturbed and relaxed again and to wake up in the morning relaxed and refreshed.
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