Sufficient sleep is vital for the health of humans and animals. If you sleep badly, you will notice negative psychological and physical effects after a short time.

How important is sleep?

Sleeping is part of everyone’s everyday routine. Researchers now know with absolute certainty that good sleep is essential for survival. According to the Robert Koch Institute, getting enough sleep is particularly important for the healthy development of children and young people. The need for sleep decreases with age and can also differ between peers.

Sleep researchers recommend adults get at least 7.5 hours of sleep a day. Children, on the other hand, need significantly more, depending on their age. In the early years, 13 hours or more is common. After that, the number of hours gradually decreases over the years. As a teenager, you should get eight to eleven hours of sleep.

Children and adolescents who sleep little have an increased risk of obesity, which is attributed to the short sleep duration, which can lead to an increased appetite and thus to an increased energy intake. Furthermore, lack of sleep can be associated with a reduced body temperature, which reduces energy requirements. Finally, lack of sleep leads to fatigue, which negatively affects physical activity.

Previously assumed: why do we sleep?

It is generally assumed that sleep is essential for the development and regeneration of nerve cells. Sleep is a necessary process for storing and processing information. It is therefore extremely important to get a good night’s sleep, since sufficient sleep acts like a reset button. The next morning you are fit and rested, so that you can at best go about your tasks fully focused and concentrated.

If you are constantly sleeping too little due to a stressful job, family or other daily burdens, you will find that you are much less concentrated and clumsy. You react slower or make wrong decisions because your brain can’t run at full speed all the time.

Researchers have put forward some hypotheses about why we need sleep:
The brain has a chance to train important neural connections that might otherwise deteriorate due to lack of activity.
Sleep gives the brain the ability to reorganize data to find problem solving, process newly learned information, and organize and archive memories.
Synapses that are no longer required are deleted and cleaned up. Therefore, we wake up feeling refreshed and more optimistic.
The cardiovascular system takes a break during sleep. With enough good sleep, blood pressure can be lowered in the long term.
Growth hormones are increasingly released during deep sleep. The body can repair or replace muscle, tissue, and aging or dead cells during sleep.

New sleep study: research team delivers surprising results

When we sleep at night, the body sleeps but not the mind. At night, the brain is mainly busy processing thoughts and experiences. It sorts out which thoughts are remembered and which are deleted or archived.

Tononi and Cirelli, biologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, presented the notion that humans and animals sleep to forget in a New York Times article. They found that synapses are partially cut while we sleep. This is how unimportant memories are lost. On the other hand, we remember more when the neurons in the brain have as many connections as possible. So when a thought or activity is used more often, the connection of the synapses in the brain becomes stronger and stronger. All connections that are only used once or rarely are pushed further and further into the background. We assume that we have this information even if the brain actually never forgets anything.

Now you might think that’s a bad thing, or that it would make us more forgetful. But on the contrary! When the brain automatically deletes all information that is unimportant or superfluous, it creates more capacity for new impressions and thoughts. So if you often have a full head, you should treat yourself to a large portion of sleep to be able to forget unimportant things.

Sleep to forget: Is this why we sleep?

The focus of sleeping is not forgetting, but maintaining our health. This includes the automatic deletion of information in the brain as well as the regeneration of the body. Getting enough sleep is good for your health.

Conversely, not getting enough sleep increases the risk of disease: The results of a recent sleep study by the University of Gothenburg indicate that people who sleep less than six hours a night have a 27 percent higher risk of atherosclerosis, which leads to clogged veins and such heart failure, stroke, or an aneurysm. The study also found that middle-aged men who sleep five hours or less a night are twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke twenty years later.

Conclusion: Too little sleep is comparable to the effects of smoking or diabetes. There are enough reasons to get enough sleep and rest on a regular basis to keep your body and mind healthy and active in the long term and to sort, process or delete the 60,000 thoughts we think every day.

Do you regularly feel tired and worn out, do you toss and turn from right to left at night or have trouble falling asleep? Perhaps you or your partner also suffer from breathing-related sleep disorders (snoring)? Check your sleep hygiene and follow the tips from sleep doctor Dr. medical Michael Feld, in order to find a healthier sleeping behavior “like in sleep” and thus a better quality of life.

Sleep hygiene

It has nothing to do with cleanliness, but stands for certain behaviors and the environment that promote restful sleep.

Avoid stress or particular physical activity

Anything that heats up the body prevents it from falling asleep. Ventilate the bedroom well, put the cell phone away at least 90 minutes before going to bed and make sure that everyday stress and worries for the night are hidden.

Right amount of sleep

About 80 percent of all people need seven to eight hours of sleep. In Germany, however, we only sleep 6:54 hours a night. The remaining 20 percent of people need either less than seven hours or more than eight hours.

Room temperature

The room temperature contributes to a sleep-promoting body temperature. The thermometer in the bedroom should not rise above 16 to 20 °C at night. If you tend to sweat at night, it is better to use two thinner blankets instead of one thick one to better regulate the heat in bed.

Smartphone

What can I personally do to positively change my sleep disorders? Despite our meritocracy, many opportunities are in our own hands. Do I have to reach for my smartphone late at night? It is best to filter out the blue light with glasses or the setting options of the devices. For the body, no blue light means that it boosts melatonin production. Melatonin is the conductor of darkness.

Movement

Take every opportunity to exercise during the day: If you use public transport to get to work, get off one station earlier and walk the rest of the way. Go for a walk during your lunch break or in the evening. Use the stairs, instead of taking the elevator, walk up and down when talking on the phone instead of staying comfortably seated.

Sports

A good level of exercise during the day is essential for restful nights. Sport ensures deep sleep and makes it more restful. This applies to occasional athletes as well as to professionals. However, as always, the dose makes the poison. High-performance sport is often rather harmful to the body because the loads are too high and this can also damage sleep.

Power napping

The good old afternoon nap. Seriously, sleeping is not a waste of time. In the meantime, power napping is picking up speed and is a topic of conversation in management floors. I can only recommend that if you have the opportunity to do so professionally, take it.

Duvet

The blanket is important for temperature regulation at night. Our body temperature drops about 1-1.5 degrees at night. So that the body does not cool down, we need a suitable blanket. The fact that we are not aware of our surroundings while we sleep makes us vulnerable. A blanket gives us protection.

Mattress

There are people who prefer to sleep a little softer and others who prefer a hard mattress. From an orthopedic point of view, people who are heavier should choose a harder model. Otherwise, you wake up the next morning with back and neck pain.

Nutrition

You are what you eat! A wise saying. That’s why it’s wise to do a little research on healthy eating. Here are a few tips that are specific to sleep.

Lots of freshness

Basically, eat as healthily as possible with lots of fresh and few finished products, exercise regularly to burn calories and keep your basal metabolic rate high, and eat the right things at the right time.

Pay attention to the time

When it comes to nutrition, “when” is just as important as “what” and “how much”. If you want/should/must pay attention to your weight, this is all the more recommendable.

Regularity

Eating regularly in line with the natural rhythm of digestion helps the internal clock to stay in sync. Three main meals are ideal because the stomach and intestines need four to eight hours to digest food to some extent. A five-hour break between meals is optimal because it lowers insulin levels.

Lifebuoy Formula

The more processed a food and the higher its sugar and fat content, the more likely it will end up on your stomach and hips.

Eat lightly in the evening

Dinner should be easy to digest and not bloating: If you have a sensitive digestion, it is better not to eat salad, raw vegetables, legumes, cabbage, hard-boiled eggs, fatty foods or fatty meat. Because all of this can put a strain on the stomach, intestines and liver and drive away sleep. The ideal would be not to eat anything at least two hours before going to sleep.

Carbohydrates and fats during the day

Carbohydrates and fats are not demonized here, even though that’s all the rage right now. Carbohydrates are important sources of energy and make their power available quickly and effectively. On the way from hunter to farmer, man gained a lot more energy for the group by growing grain and was also able to provide for hard times. The brain in particular is dependent on sugar from carbohydrates. We need good unsaturated fats (in sea fish, nuts, vegetable oils) for our cell membranes, for brain function, for the heart and for our energy balance. In the evening, however, you should consume fewer carbohydrates and fats, as they are more likely to convert to fat at night than during the day.