The Sleep Solution summary

Many people have experienced sleeplessness, but some believe that they don’t sleep at all.

Those who think they don’t sleep often talk about it to their friends or perhaps even their doctor, but the fact of the matter is that everybody sleeps – some just don’t sleep effectively.

There is a lot about sleep that we still don’t understand, but we do know that there are three stages necessary for satisfactory sleep.

The first is light sleep, which is the stage between full consciousness and deep sleep, and a delicate state from which it’s easy to wake up.

When it comes to getting good sleep, healthy circadian rhythms are also essential, as they manage your internal body clock.

Circadian rhythms are a system of bodily processes that operate on a 24-hour cycle, and determine when you feel sleepy and when you feel awake.

The term sleep hygiene refers to the process of controlling your environment and pre-bedtime behavior in order to have the best sleep possible. To optimize your sleep, you should start off by preparing your bedroom.

As light keeps you awake, your bedroom should be submerged in complete darkness. This is because your eyes sense when it’s dark and send signals to your brain, which in turn makes your pineal gland produce melatonin – the chemical responsible for making you feel sleepy.

In the United States, insomnia is something of an epidemic, with over 20 percent of the population being affected by it. Although it seems to be relatively widespread, there are still a lot of misconceptions surrounding the condition.

Most people believe that insomnia merely refers to an inability to sleep, but as you learned in the previous blinks, everybody sleeps – otherwise they’d die!

Nowadays, information on the dangers of not getting enough good sleep is everywhere. People are routinely told that a lack of sleep is making them unhealthy and overweight, which is corroborated by numerous studies.

In fact, sleeping for less than six hours a night is often linked to obesity. In 2015, a study was published in the journal Sleep, showing that as an individual’s sleep levels decrease, the production of the hunger hormone ghrelin increases, which likely contributes to overeating and the resulting obesity.

If you don’t wake up at the same time each morning and instead let your varying sleep determine your schedule, then you need some consistency!

Having a regular wake-up time is hugely beneficial for your overall sleep. In order to sleep well, you need to be in control of your sleep schedule; once you’ve achieved this, having a bad night’s sleep will have no repercussions.