Sleep
-There are 5 stages of sleep.
-You dream each time you sleep. Sometimes you remember it sometimes you don’t.
-In stage 2 you get sleep spindles which are important for procedural memory. You get most of your sleep spindles from around 7-8 hours of sleep (you get most of them from your REM sleep)
-Deep sleep stage = important for muscle repair
-REM sleep= important for emotion processing and memory consolidating
-SO, 7-8 hours are ideal for performing optimally.
Longitudinal studies have shown sleeping less or more hours = related to:
1. Obesity
2. Weaker Immune System (for ex. if you sleep less you produce less antibodies apparently)
3. Increased mortality
-If you are going to nap, don’t go over 1 hour because the homeostatic pressure that builds to help you sleep at night lowers a lot and will make it difficult to sleep.
-Alcohol helps me sleep, but it’s bad because it messes up your REM sleep. It disturbs it in the first half and rebounds it in the 2nd half so that’s why sometimes you get vivid ass dreams. That’s why I heard that when you remember your dreams it could be that you are getting bad sleep.
-Usually insomnia is caused by stress and worry, but because of this people who have trouble sleeping at night start to fear sleep itself (like me). So when you try to sleep you think about not being able to sleep and get pissed off. It’s like classical conditioning, you fear the bed because that’s where you can’t sleep.
-To help sleep:
1. Go to bed and wake up at the same time
2. Use the bed only for sleep and sex, don’t be staying in bed all the time reading and watching TV and stuff.
3. If you can’t sleep, get out of bed (and out of the room if possible) for 15-20 minutes and read a book, then go back.
