Recently, I was told by my coaches that if I want to become a stronger, faster, better athlete than I need to create a regular sleeping schedule with a consistent 7-9 hours of sleep.This comes in the wake of him learning that I usually get 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night and then I take long naps throughout the day. One of the coaches claimed that my body wouldn’t recover if I continued in that matter. I was completely baffled by this suggestion because I show no signs of being tired and when I played I felt fine. But, this could simply be another case of my intuition pointing me the wrong direction. A study was done by Tel Aviv University, shows that “full night of interrupted sleep is equivalent to no more than four hours of consecutive sleep, in terms of how you’ll likely feel and act the next day”.
Now that I know that a lack of consistent non-interrupted sleep can hurt my time recovery from the day before. I try to get to bed at a reasonable time that allows a full night of rest. However, recently I have notice that I wake up in the middle the night. As you read above instructions during sleep is extremely bad for your overall health, so how do I get rid of this tendency. From this article I learned that it is actually a disorder called sleep-maintenance insomnia in which for many different reasons such as stress or stimulants. Some of suggestion to fixing this problem are to do things such as turning your bed to a sanctuary. This means that you stop doing active things while laying in your bed. As a result your brain will begin to situate lying in the bed with sleep which should not only help you stay asleep longer but also put you to sleep quicker.
Work Cited
Millian, Amanda. “Can I Break Up My Eight Hours of Sleep a Night?” Outside Online. N.p., 30 July 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.
The Better Sleep Council. “Physical Performance & Sleep.” Physical Performance & Sleep. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.
Komaroff, Anthony. “I Fall Asleep Easily, but Wake in the Middle of the Night. Do You Have Tips to Help Me Stay Asleep? – Ask Doctor K.” Ask Doctor K RSS. N.p., 22 July 2013. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.
This was interesting to me, because although you want to improve your sleep schedule you continue to take naps. Power naps may seem good, but they are actually bad for your health. Avoid naps if you can. Check out this article related to the harmful effects of naps, and why they may be bad for you: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11872199/Why-power-naps-may-be-bad-for-your-health.html
Disregarding water and air, sleep is one of the most important things to the human body because over time the body will not function without it. Similar to physical performance, mental performance and sleep go hand and hand. 3000 high school students were involved in a test to evaluate this. The test showed that the students who had B’s averaged nearly 30 minutes more sleep than that of the students who got C’s. Something to keep in min as we all prepare for finals in the upcoming weeks.
https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-news/improve-your-childs-school-performance-good-nights-sleep
This article was interesting and somewhat relevant because I did a post on why sleep is so important to us. This being said I was surprised to read in your post that a full night of interrupted sleep is equivalent no more than four hours. This is alarming because in the research I did, I learned that if I person gets less than 7 hours a night it can lead to a lot of negative health benefits such as weight gain, illness, and lack of attention. This must be why people with insomnia usually have another health issue.
I liked where you were headed with this, but I would have loved to see some more research that you conducted to fix your problem or more sleep studies that showed the reader something we didn’t know. I want to help you out though, and I know that this research has become more prominent as cellphones and laptops have started to cause problems for young adults — this Business Insider article says that starting at your phone right before you go to bed can really hurt how you sleep and when you sleep. Check this out and let me know what you think: http://www.businessinsider.com/smartphone-impact-brain-body-sleep-2015-2
I would have liked to see the link to the study so I could learn about it more. I did a blog on sleep and how getting too much sleep is bad for you, so I agree with your coach when he gave you the 7-9 hours advice. Also, I believe you should have found another study to really give you some more evidence if interrupted sleep can be harmful. I agree with the thought that you should stop doing work on your bed and keep your bed space for just sleeping.
Interesting post that I’m sure the majority of people our age can relate to. I’ve read that once you loose any sleep, it can never be replaced. Meaning, if I slept one hour last night, my body will not undue any of the damage even if I sleep 16 hours the next night. Here is an interesting article http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070702145152.htm
This article caught my eye because I am literally known among my friends to have sleeping issues, particularly with staying asleep through out the night as you described. I decided to look up more information on sleep maintenance insomnia, and found a study here where participants were given melatonin at different times before bed and also different releases. While the melatonin helped the participants to fall asleep quickly, there was not too much statistically significant data regarding staying asleep (which I experienced through melatonin last night and can actually attest for).