2024-02-02 16:53:13
Sleep represents more than a third of our lives. It is decisive for growth, brain maturation, development and even the preservation of our cognitive abilities, recalls the Health Surveillance Institute (INVS) (source 1). It also has a role in the occurrence or prevention of diseases or their worsening. This is why it requires careful attention! We tell you more.
What is sleep for? Why do we sleep?
We sleep above all to recover. “Sleep has several particular functions, inseparable from the waking state and involving many physiological mechanisms : hormonal secretions, cellular regeneration (skin, muscle, etc.), memorization, etc. », explains the INVS.
“When the body is in a ‘resting’ phase, neuronal connections are reorganized, which allows it to adapt to its environment. Sleeping thus allows physical, psychological and intellectual recovery…sleep prepares for the state of wakefulness that follows.”
Various recovery processes take place during sleep
In his book Learn to sleep once more to be healthyProfessor Pierre Philip explains that a restorative sleepis a ” great battery “. The more restful the sleep, the better you feel during the day. Among the recovery processes that occur during sleep, notes the specialist, there are:
“The storage of information in memory; The restart of the immune system; The elimination of metabolic waste and detoxification; The processing of emotions; The adjustment of many hormonal secretions; The production of growth hormones; The production of melatonin ;Soothing of the digestive system;Maintaining our internal temperature;Deactivating stress systems…”.
The heart also slows down its frequency and lowers blood and arterial pressure. Frequency respiratory also decreases. L‘immunitythe blood sugar regulation and the mood stabilization are also highly dependent on sleep.
“So the next day, we have energy, resistance, we are capable of defend once morest infections ; memory, concentration and the ability to make decisions work, we are in a good mood and able to to manage stress “, continues the expert.
Sleep, essential for brain functioning
If the effects of its lack are felt throughout the body, sleep seems to be closely linked to the brain.
According to certain works, it would be the result of connections between neurons, whose activity varies regularly. Other theories concern the brain’s need to “rest” to replenish its energy, because when we are asleep, he only consumes half the glucose he needs when we are awake.
“Many people think that wakefulness is our brain’s natural state of functioning. In reality, the latter can only work if you allow yourself regular and prolonged episodes of sleep. The primary function of sleep is to allow the brain to operate in another mode which promotes, among other things, memorization and learning,” writes Professor Philip.
“When, during the day, we engage in new tasks, we must be able to reproduce them in our sleep to learn them and eliminate what we do not want to keep. Sleep plays this sorting role for your memory, thanks to the synchronized activation of neural networks.
Why do you need to sleep a lot?
However, scientists still don’t know exactly why we spend nearly a third of our lives sleeping, nor why it is absolutely necessary to sleep at least once per 24 hours, and 6 to 8 hours by night.
The importance of slow and deep sleep
“A recent hypothesis has caught the attention of many researchers in the neuroscience community,” explains Professor Philip. “This research has indeed shown a new function of sleep that would act as a brain cleaner (Fultz study, Bonmassar et al., 2019). During the day, the cell factory produces a whole bunch of proteins which are used to code messages and produce neurotransmitters which are then released outside the cell. To avoid too much accumulation, there is a circulation of liquid between the interior of the cells and the extracellular space which allows the cell to be purged of all its debris produced during the day. When we measure these exchanges over 24 hours, we see that sleep, and especially deep slow-wave sleepis a particularly intense period of this cleaning ».
Did you know ?
On average, adulthood (18 to 65 years old), the best is to sleep 7 to 9 hours per night. A teenager (14 to 17 years old) needs 8 to 10 hours of sleep. Over 65 years old, the need for sleep is between 7 and 8 hours. It is not necessarily necessary to sleep 8 hours: an average of 7 hours will suit some people better. No need to force yourself to stay in bed for 8 hours if you don’t sleep!
What happens if we stop sleeping?
“The need for sleep can be compared to a hourglass. The longer we stay awake, the more the hourglass empties and the more we need to sleep. […] The need for sleep builds up as the day and then evening progress. After a night of restful sleep, the imaginary hourglass is filled once more and we enter the day full of energy. And instead, when the need for sleep has not been satisfied, we become drowsy. This process which regulates sleep needs is called homeostatic regulation,” explains Professor Philip in his work.
Various researches have proven that lack of sleep affects memory, attention and emotion regulation. In question, the connections between neurons which seem to strengthen during the hours of falling asleep. We also know today that reducing sleep time or altering its quality probably promotes weight gain and theobesity.
However, the effects of sleep remain very complicated to isolate and study. When we focus on the consequences of lack of sleep, it is not possible to know whether certain symptoms are attributed to this lack or to the stress it causes in the body.
Why do we sleep less as we age?
Depending on age, there are notable changes in sleep duration and the distribution of the various sleep stages. It is now proven thata change in the distribution of sleep over 24 hours occurs from the age of 60. This is without taking into account the role ofbiological clock, which changes over time, with a less marked wake/sleep differential. Result: deep sleep tends to decrease, the time it takes to fall asleep is longer, we are more prone to sleep disorders…
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