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Key insights from
The Sleep Solution
By
W. Chris Winter
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What you'll learn
For all the talk about the
importance of a good night’s sleep, how many of us actually wake up in the
morning feeling rested? In The
Sleep Solution, Chris Winter debunks common myths
about sleep by explaining what is actually happening in the body during
sleep. Drawing from years of research and firsthand experience dealing with
people’s sleeping problems, Winter provides insights and suggestions that
can help people understand this vital life process and get the best sleep
possible.
Read
on for key insights from The Sleep Solution.
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1. Your body is
doing remarkable things while you sleep.
Believe it or not, you are
not at the mercy of your current sleep patterns: they are subject to
alteration and improvement based on actionable steps. Sleep is a skill, and
it is an important skill to hone because your body does the most
incredible things while you sleep.
For example, your
glymphatic system, the brain’s waste removal system, disposes of the
harmful amyloid beta proteins with 60% greater efficiency when you’re
asleep. Excessive amounts of this protein are linked to conditions like
Alzheimer’s, so this process is a critical one.
There is a link between
poor sleep and obesity. A study of 1 million Chinese revealed that there
are far higher rates of obesity among those who average fewer than seven
hours of sleep a night. The connection between sleep deprivation and
decreased capacity to manage impulses is also a well-established
phenomenon. It is easier to say no to that Krispy Kreme donut after a full
night’s sleep than after two hours of fitful sleep.
A prolonged lack of sleep
can have devastating effects on the heart and circulatory system. There is
ample research that links poor sleep to stroke and cardiac arrest. Sleep is
also essential for proper immunity. Without adequate sleep, you are more
susceptible to sickness. What is more, sleep helps maintain strong
emotional health. Study after study links insomnia and sleep deprivation to
depression and anxiety. There is nothing like a night of deep,
uninterrupted sleep to lift your mood.
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2. Misconceptions
about sleep abound.
Despite the many op-eds and
talk show segments devoted to the subject of sleep, there are numerous
misconceptions. Here are a few truths to counteract the myth-making and
pseudoscience:
Everyone sleeps
Despite the vehement
protests of some insomniacs, everyone sleeps. Many don’t sleep well, but no
one does not sleep. Some people have issues of sleep misperception, where
they are convinced they lie awake all night even though they were actually
asleep. Some patients come to the sleep lab for tests, claiming that they
have not slept at all for years. When they are shown camera footage of them
fast asleep and charts of their vitals during the night which indicate the
same, denial and anger are common reactions. Everyone sleeps.
90-minute REM cycles and the 8 hours rule are
generalizations
The common wisdom has
become that it is better to wake up as you exit a 90-minute REM cycle. The
idea that 6 hours of sleep is better than 7 hours because 6 hours rounds
out a cycle is ridiculous. More sleep is more sleep. 90 minutes is simply
an average cycle. One person may have REM cycles that last 80 minutes,
another’s might exceed 100 minutes. Everyone is different. If you set your
alarm according to 90-minute intervals, you could be missing out on some
quality sleep time. Similarly, 8 hours of sleep is a good suggestion, but
not a hard and fast rule applicable to all. Between infancy and adulthood,
the amount of sleep needed lessens, but it will lessen at differing rates
from person to person. Some adults function fine with 6 hours, while others
need 9 or more. Don’t listen to the popular talking points; listen to what
your body is telling is you.
Deep sleep is distinct from dream sleep
Deep sleep is the phase
that makes you feel rested. It accounts for about a quarter of your time
asleep. During deep sleep, or N3, the brain wave movement is at its
slowest. It is during this period that growth hormone is secreted; this is
why children sleep so much and can often sleep through anything. Over the
course of a person’s life, growth hormone production tapers off, but even
if you’re done growing, this growth hormone helps maintain bone strength,
muscle development, and immunity.
Dream sleep, on the other
hand, is REM sleep, more or less. This period accounts for another quarter
of your sleep time, and it is during this period that your brain remains
active, subjecting you to dreams of falling, being chased by animals,
flying, etc.
People tend to conflate
these two but they are distinct and discrete phases of sleep. The ideal
pattern is a vacillation between deep sleep and dream sleep, punctuated by
light sleep periods.
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3. Good “sleep
hygiene” is essential to getting solid sleep.
Poor sleep hygiene could be
inhibiting your blissful, unadulterated sleep. Sleep hygiene refers to the
ways you prepare for sleep: the state of your bed, your bedroom, your diet,
and how you spend your time before you go to bed.
Ideally, you want to your bedroom
to be clean, dark, and quiet. Clean sheets and an organized room can add a
sense of order and bring relaxation for some. Because the body produces
melatonin when receptors in the eyes pick up darkness, it is best to keep
the room as dark as possible. Eliminate extraneous light by buying heavier
curtains, covering the light from your alarm clock and from any electronic
devices. The bedroom is for sleeping and sex. If you have a TV, move it to
the living room. Bright lights and loud sounds before bed inhibit a smooth
transition to dream land. The blues and greens in electronic screens
stimulate the brain; so, if you must have some kind of screen before bed
(again, not recommended), consider downloading an app that filters out
certain colors and dims the screen over the course of the day.
If you have a bedmate, you
may want to consider sleeping in separate bedrooms. This may rankle some,
but remember: the bedroom is for sex and sleep. If you or your loved one is
not getting sleep, the bedroom fails to serve a key purpose. It does not
need to be a permanent arrangement, but it could help both of you get
better sleep.
Your bedding also matters a
great deal. Buy the most comfortable mattress you can afford. Try out
different pillows until you find the one you like best. Buy sheets with a
high thread count and a down comforter if that would make you more
comfortable. Do everything you can to love your bed and the space in which
you sleep.
Nicotine, alcohol and
caffeine should also be limited, especially before bed. Nicotine and
caffeine are both stimulants. Smoking is a health-eroding habit and does
not actually “calm you down” before bed. Some tests suggest that drinking
caffeinated substances even six hours before going to bed can reduce sleep
by as much as an hour. Alcohol is among the more popular soporifics, but
sedation is different than sleep. Many of the amazing things that the body
does during sleep do not happen when one is merely sedated. What is more,
despite dubious reports about alcohol’s usefulness in enhancing sleep
(sedation) during the first half of the night, there is no doubt that
alcohol consumption tends to hamper sleep during the second part of the
night. It is not uncommon to sleep soundly for four to six hours and then
be wide awake and unable to get back to sleep after consuming alcohol. And
then there’s the dehydration, the headaches, the nausea: your sleep is too
important.
Diet is also an important
factor to consider. Exact timeframes are somewhat arbitrary, but the
National Sleep Foundation’s recommendation that you eat two to three hours
before going to sleep is a sound one. If you must have a late night snack,
light foods that contain melatonin (walnuts and tart cherries) are ideal.
Teas with valerian root and chamomile can be helpful before bed. Avoid
foods loaded with proteins, as this can have a stimulating effect, making
you more alert at a time when you are ready to hit the hay.
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4. Most cases of
insomnia can be encapsulated in one word: fear.
Though many don’t sleep
well, everyone sleeps—including those who deal with insomnia. If you have
difficulty getting sleep consistently and you are frustrated about the
consistent lack of sleep, then you could have insomnia. It is important to
emphasize the role of personal feelings toward the lack of sleep.
There are numerous insomnia
typologies out there, attempting to document insomnia in its various
manifestations: sleep-onset insomnia, paradoxical insomnia, familial fatal
insomnia, and sleep maintenance are but a few. The more multifaceted they
are, the less helpful they tend to be. Perhaps the most useful division is
between temporary and chronic insomnia, or “simple” and “hard” insomnia.
Simple insomnia is a helpful nomenclature because it describes the problem
as having a solution that’s not complicated. As the other label suggests,
hard insomnia is a more difficult matter, but it is not an impossible one
to sort out.
Some believe genetics shed
light on insomnia. Dutch researcher Eus van Someren and others have made
waves with talk of an insomnia gene, but psychology is more helpful than
biology in understanding the phenomenon. For one, insomnia is better
understood as a symptom rather than a condition, a fruit rather than a
root. More often than not, it is stress and anxiety that lead to insomnia.
The consistent inability to get to sleep makes people concerned that they
are insomniacs, which can snowball into a full-fledged state of fear that
they will always struggle with sleep issues. Linking insomnia to genetics
is not only inaccurate, but has likely resigned some to its presence
because there’s no solution to defects in your DNA.
Part of the cure to
insomnia is in attitudes and beliefs, how you choose to view its presence
in your life. If you make it an all-consuming thought, you risk giving it
an added weight that it doesn’t deserve. When people start to call
themselves insomniacs, it can become part of an identity. If you make
insomnia an inextricable part of who you are, you will have a harder time
moving past it. This “insomnia identity,” as some scholars call it, can
exacerbate the symptoms of anxiety and stress that gave rise to insomnia in
the first place, strengthening its hold.
Sleep is incredibly
important. If you don’t manage to get a good night’s sleep, that’s okay.
Fretting over it makes it worse than it already is.
This argument might upset
some. It might strike some as overly simplistic. The intent is not to
minimize the problem of insomnia but to reframe it. Accepting the
difficulty of getting good sleep might help reduce the stress and anxiety
that comes from difficulty getting good sleep. It is a way of
short-circuiting a vicious feedback loop.
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5. Napping is
great unless it interferes with a proper night’s sleep.
To nap, or not to nap, that
is a frequently asked question. The answer is that it depends—naps are
intended to complement an efficient night’s sleep, not compensate for
inefficient sleep. When sleep doctors talk about sleep efficiency, they
refer to the amount of time spent asleep divided by the amount of time in
bed, multiplied by 100.
Time asleep ÷ Time in bed x 100 = Sleep efficiency rating
You might get seven and a
half hours of sleep, but if you’re in bed for ten hours in order to accrue
that amount of sleep, that is an incredibly inefficient ratio, and you’ll
likely feel like garbage during the day. Let’s plug those figures into the
above equation:
7.5 hours spent asleep ÷ 10 hours in bed x 100 = 75%
A sleep efficiency rating
between 85 and 90% is ideal. A rating of 75% is far less than optimal
because it means you’re spending a long time in bed without the payoff of
good sleep. A nap may sound like the natural decision to someone whose
sleep is routinely inefficient, but it could be ruining that person’s sleep
for the following night. It’s like snacking before a meal. If you eat too
much, or too soon before the meal, it could ruin your appetite. It best to
nap when: 1) your sleep is efficient, and 2) your naps don’t interfere with
your sleep at night.
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