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Why We Sleep PDF

Deep sleep improves recall, light sleep improves learning, and REM sleep improves making sense of information and related emotions. Getting enough sleep in all stages is important for memory consolidation. Two pillars of good sleep are darkness, as blue light suppresses melatonin, and coolness, as the body needs to lower its temperature to initiate sleep.

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Why We Sleep PDF

Deep sleep improves recall, light sleep improves learning, and REM sleep improves making sense of information and related emotions. Getting enough sleep in all stages is important for memory consolidation. Two pillars of good sleep are darkness, as blue light suppresses melatonin, and coolness, as the body needs to lower its temperature to initiate sleep.

Uploaded by

unnikrishnan r
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Insights from Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker Ph.D.

 
During sleep, your brain transition between three types of sleep: deep sleep, light sleep, and REM sleep. 

Deep Sleep 
During the day, your hippocampus (a finger‐shaped region in the middle of your brain) temporarily stores information, like names or the 
steps of a new work procedure. During deep sleep, your mind transports data from the hippocampus to permanent storage locations in 
the brain, like a mail delivery service transporting packages from a mailroom to homes around a city. 

If you decide to stay up late and skip out on the first two hours of your regular sleep schedule, you’ll miss most of your deep sleep and fail 
to store important information in your long‐term memory. 

Light Sleep 

Light sleep acts like the mailroom cleaning staff – it clears your hippocampus to make room for new information the following day. After 
being awake for 16 hours, it’s difficult for your hippocampus to hold on to new information. If you’ve stayed up late to read a textbook, 
and read the same paragraph over and over, failing to comprehend the information, then you’ve experienced a full hippocampus. Light 
sleep is the delay refresh that renews your ability to learn new facts.  

Most of your light sleep is at the end of a full night’s sleep. That means waking up early to study can be counterproductive. When you wake 
up early and only get five to six hours of sleep, you severely impair your ability to learn. And, if you wake up much earlier than usual (up at 5 
a.m. when you typically wake at 7 a.m.), you're also missing most of your REM sleep that night.

REM Sleep (Dream Sleep) 
When you enter REM sleep, your mind begins to make sense of what happened during the day by connecting newly stored information 
with previously stored information. The connections are often bizarre and lead to creative breakthroughs. Singer/songwriter Paul 
McCartney famously woke up with the entire melody to ‘Yesterday’ in his head and thought someone else had written it. 

REM sleep not only provides creative insights, it offers emotional insights too.  

Dreams (which only occur during REM sleep) simulate anxious situations so that you learn how to deal with your anxiety and become 
coolheaded under pressure. Dreams also help you transition from despair to hope ‐ if you're going through a bitter break‐up or divorce, 
dreaming will help you move on. Dreams are the cheapest and most effective form of therapy. 

Deep sleep improves your ability to recall information, light sleep improves your ability to learn new 
information, and REM sleep improves your ability to make sense of information, and any related emotion. 

Two Pillars of a Good Night’s Sleep 

Dark  Cool 
When the brain detects blue light, it suppresses a chemical called  Your body temperature needs to drop two to three degrees 
melatonin. That’s not good, because melatonin provides the  Fahrenheit to initiate sleep. It is hard to lower your core 
push you need to fall asleep.  temperature when your house remains at room temperature. 
That's why I’ve programmed my thermostat to reduce my house 
A study found that reading a book on an iPad suppressed  temperature to 65F every night at nine p.m., and maintain that 
melatonin 50% more than reading a print book. Another study  temperature throughout the night. 
found that a bedside lamp, with just one to two percent of the 
strength of daylight, can also reduce melatonin by 50%. That's  Also, right before bed, I take a hot shower. Taking a hot shower 
why when the sun goes down, I now put on blue light blocking  might seem counter‐intuitive…but after a hot shower/bath my 
glasses. Then, a half hour before bed, I read a print book under  body heat transfers from my core to the surface of my body, 
red LED light. Then, when it’s time to sleep, I put on my sleep  then dissipates into the atmosphere. The result: core 
mask.  temperature drops, and it’s easy to fall asleep. 

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