Sleep and the power of napping
I am glad the conversation around sleep has come full circle. I remember people used to boast about how little sleep they can operate on. Often referencing 'you can sleep when you are dead!' Their words not mine! Don’t get me wrong there are occasions where the candle will be burnt at both ends but doing it religiously for months on end is not healthy!
Lets take a closer look at sleep:
Recent research has found that the number of sleep cycles a person goes through a night is more important than the number of hours sleep they get.
A sleep cycle is made up for 5 stages
🔺Stages 1-4 NREM (Non-rapid eye movement)
🔺Stages 1-2 are light sleep and are easy be woken from.
🔺Stages 3-4 are entering into a deep sleep.
🔺Stage 5 is REM sleep (This is when most dreams occur)
A complete sleep cycle take an average of 90-110 minutes. Each stage lasts between 5-15 minutes.
The number of sleep cycles a person goes through a night is much more important than the house of sleep they get.
People need an average of 5 sleep cycles a night.
Work backwards in 5 blocks of 90 minutes to find out when you should go to sleep in order to wake up feeling the most refreshed.
What if you can't get 5 cycles in?
Naps....say what! Yup, napping have been scientifically proven to be one of the most effective ways to stay alert and perform at a high level. Rock and Roll!
30 minutes of napping is the perfect time period for a nap. You don’t enter a deep sleep but you wake up feeling mentally refreshed.
Tips:
If you have difficultly napping consider using binaural beats these are an auditory hack designed to help you sleep. They play tow different frequencies through each headphone and target the delta and theta waves which help you sleep.
Happy Napping!
Useful links: https://sportsleepcoach.com/
Apps: Apple - https://www.apple.com/us/search/binaural-beats?src=serp
Android - https://play.google.com/store/search?q=binarual%20beats&c=apps&hl=en_GB
