It is an active state of unconsciousness produced by the body where the brain is in a relative state of rest and is reactive primarily to internal stimulus.
The exact purpose of sleep has not been fully elucidated.
Definition of sleep:
Is a normal, reversible, recurrent state of reduced responsiveness to external stimulation.
These changes include coordinated, spontaneous, internally generated brain activity and fluctuations in hormone levels and relaxation of musculature.
Sleep is different from states of
- coma,
- hibernation
- and death
By the fact that it can be rapidly reversed.
According to National Sleep Fundation we have different sleep duration that correlates with aging []
There is U’shaped correlation between sleep duaration and all case mortality [https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.880276/full]
But sleep duration and sleep quality is so importaint not only due to this factor. Sleep correlates with our life quality and poor sleep correlates not only with possibility to concentrate, learn and remember information but wlso with many chronic diseases development:
- DM
- Hypertension
- CVD
- Dementia and other mental health problems
- Depressia
- and ect
Also poor sleep quality correlates with our immune system and its ability to resist to other infections.
So, by improving sleep you will improve not only life quality of your clients but also prevent several numbers of disease.
Sleep neurophysiology is complex and it is still under investigation. However 2 general processes are rulling our sleep it is Process C and Process S (relatied to cyrcadian rythms and homeostatic sleep drive, correspondingly).
We usually ask our clients about
- duration
- quality
- and sleep scedule
We have several tools for sleep assesment, including
- Polisomnography that is a gold standard for sleep measurements
- Diaries
- Questionarries
- Devices
- Sometimes relatives (when we are talking about snoring or some sleep related behaviour)
Also additionally to some pharmacological methods we have several tools that help us to improve sleep quality, including sleep hygine, and other lifestyle interventions, CBT-I and some devises are actively saled by sleep market. To be honest, in case of poor sleep quality everything could make sence. However it should be a match between your client condition/schedule and tools that you recommend should fit to him.
Sometimes it is just about sticking to sleep schedule, but sometimes it is more complex.
Comment, what would you like to learn more about sleep?
