Sleep

Just how important is it?

I’m beating myself up as I’ve neglected to write a post on the importance of one of the, if not the most, important things for our health… sleep. In fact, roughly 1/3 of our lives are spent sleeping which heavily dictates the quality of the other 2/3 of our existence. Sleep is an essential restorative process that all mammals must participate in to thrive. Interestingly, different mammals require varying amounts of sleep. Koalas average 20+ hours of sleep per 24-hour cycle which is rivaled by human infants that near the 16-hour mark. While most people understand that sleep is critical and that the feeling of not getting enough quality sleep is less than pleasant, what exactly happens while we sleep is rather unknown to the masses.

For the science inclined folks out there, sleep is divided into four phases, three of which are considered non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM) and the other being rapid eye movement sleep (REM). REM is named the way it is since our eyes are rapidly moving during this phase which is also the phase when the majority of our dreams occur. It’s actually rather unimportant that you know these stages, but you’ll tend to see fitness trackers measuring the various stages of sleep nowadays so it’s worth paying some attention to. If you are interested in tracking your sleep, it seems the two most accurate trackers are the WHOOP Strap and Oura Ring but these can be fairly pricey! A future post will delve into the various sleepwear.

There are numerous processes that our bodies can’t perform to their fullest capacity when we are up and moving around during the day. Instead, the body uses the time when we are asleep to ‘tidy up’, if you will, and promote recovery for the following day.