The Sleep...

(7 - 12 - 2012)

How many hours should we sleep at night?

There is no ideal number of hours of sleep. It depends on our genes, which regulate the internal biological clock.

The hours can therefore vary from a minimum of four per night to up to 11.

However, on average, the hours required are between seven or eight.

When is the best time to sleep?

Some people prefer to go to bed early and wake up early while others, who consider themselves nocturnal, go to bed late and as a result, very often they wake up late in the morning. But even this is a genetic fact, so if our habits don't cause us problems there is no cause for concern.

It is not scientifically proven which of the two solutions is the best; it is possible to comply with both in accordance with one's own life choices.

In which phases is sleep divided?

You sleep in cycles, four or five during the night. Each cycle lasts about 90 minutes and is divided into different stages. In the first stage we find ourselves in a light sleep, followed by REM sleep (Rapid Eyes Movements) to arrive at the last stage, namely that of deep sleep.

In the first cycle the stage of deep sleep is longer than the subsequent cycles in which instead the proportion of light sleep and REM sleep increases.

Why do we sleep?

At night the brain regenerates. This is why the newborn sleeps more: he must develop it. But what exactly is sleep good for? There is no definitive answer after so many years of study.

According to some scholars, the rest period is used by the body for a sort of general maintenance, during which important hormones such as growth are secreted.

Certainly the neuro-physiologists have discovered that sleep serves the brain to "build itself": the deineuron activity during REM sleep (phase in which we dream) would stimulate the formation of brain circuits and stimulate some structures of the cerebral cortex remained inactive during the vigil.

In fact 50% of the sleep of the newborn (which dedicates this activity 14 hours out of 24) is characterized precisely by a great electrical activity of the brain and dreams.

Sleep also seems to play a crucial role in memory.

In fact, often to answer some questions, to recover the information, we move our eyes backwards as if we were looking in some corner of our mental archive.

More or less what we do during REM sleep, characterized by rapid eye movements that would be linked to the research and processing of information accumulated during the day.