Sleep, Calm and Restoration Series Part 1

I am writing this essential sleep series to those out there that may be struggling with what I now see has become a sleep epidemic, I am speaking to you from a place of truly having been there in a truly miserable way. From this place I have learned what I consider to be a dance that we must learn for us to be able to understand and cooperate with this very fine and delicate waking and sleep line that we move in and out of every day.

There are several critical components to this dance that I will certainly cover in this sleep series and which I am confident will enlighten, inspire and prompt you to make some simple changes in your day and the precious time leading up to bedtime.

I am going to offer some prescriptions to adopt and let go of whatever you you don’t like , I understand we all have different lines that we draw in the sand.

So for today we will start at the beginning and ask ourselves;

What is sleep and what does good quality sleep look like?

When we go to bed we seem to spend a little bit of time in light sleep from around 2 -15 minutes and then we drop down into deep sleep – known as NON REM sleep, this is a large amount of deep sleep, we then make our way up into dream sleep state and then drop down into the next phase/cycle of deep sleep

Most of our deep sleep is in the first cycle then a little bit less in the 2^nd, 3^rd ,4^th and on the 5^th cycle onwards we don’t really get much deep sleep .

And conversely from the 1st cycle to the next we get a little bit more dream sleep.

A bit about Brainwaves:

In the 1^st deep sleep we are in a delta wave sleep, its a very slow brain wave state, there is still quite allot happening in the brain but the way they are occuring is causing this very slow frequency which is less than 4Htz

Dream sleep state: known as theta wave sleep – more active – 4-7.5 Htz , we are dreaming so allot more is happening.

Most people who have good quality sleep tend to have anywhere between 4 to 6 dreams a night, we may not remember them because we are going back up and down too deep and to dream sleep however we do tend to have at least this amount.

Cycles of Sleep explained:

Sleep tends to be in cycles of 90 minutes and this is where I will offer you 2 prescriptions which you can take or leave:

Don’t sleep for 8hrs and don’t set your alarm if you can help it, please let me explain why I say this?

Going through 4 cycles, 4 lots of 90 minutes equals 6 hours, this is quite a lot of sleep and for quite a lot of people, 6 hrs is enough – completing these cycles efficiently can be enough, however, for others completing 5 cycles is enough or needed and that brings us to 7 ½ hrs sleep.

There is a misconception that we need 8 hours of sleep, Why???

There is a misconception that we need 8 hours of sleep, Why???

It is quite trivial really, it is thought that we need 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work and 8 hours of play, but do we really?

Why we don’t want to be sleeping for 8hrs is because if you set an alarm for 8 hrs and you wake up around the 6-hour mark or 6 1/2 hour mark you wake at the top of your cycle, your body here is telling you that its had enough sleep and your rested but because you set an alarm our natural inclination when an alarm is set and we may wake up before it goes off, is to look at the clock and think, ooh’ we have time for a bit more sneaky sleep to get for ourselves but the reason we do ourselves a disservice, is if we jump into the next sleep cycle and the alarm goes off, we have interrupted that next sleep cycle and what happens is that we feel even more exhausted and groggy than if we had woken up naturally when our body told us it was good, we have all been there with that one!.

If you set an alarm try to set it for either 6 or 7/12 sleep cycles, if you wake up naturally then this is your body telling you it’s had enough sleep, and your good to get out of bed.

40% of people do wake up sometime in the night usually between 2/3 am, it’s normal and if you do then you should try to go back to sleep but for those who can’t get back to sleep you could try a protocol by neuroscientist Andrew Huberman called non sleep deep rest, which involves practicing mindfulness, meditation or slow breathing to perhaps reset the hormones and go back to sleep again, and if not you can still certainly reap some of the benefits from doing this practice.

If you would like to learn more about that I have added here a video with Richard Huberman that you may be interested to watch.

I am committed to writing easy bite-size articles particularly when we talk about a subject like this as I am Imagining that you are probably already feeling very tired generally and I’d like for you to be able to take in easily what I am wanting to convey so that you can begin to understand what is sleep is and what are the most conducive ways you can align yourself to this most natural rhythm that are bodies are designed to have.

In the next article, I am going to discuss a crucial biological process that goes on inside each of us that is imperative to sleep happening.

The dance between the hormone of darkness, Melatonin, and the hormone of light, Cortisol.

These are the 2 hormones responsible for creating our Circadian Rhythm, a 24hr cycle of light and darkness.

To continue reading the sleep series please visit bowentechniqueindevon.com, they will be added soon, you will also be able to download for free my bedtime sleep hypnosis recording when you visit this site.

In service to helping you find your way back to delicious restorative sleep and more importantly you believing again that it is possible.

With love

Melanie