Preface: Good sleep is very important for everyone, especially those with immune diseases. Good sleep can help restore physical strength and help the immune system achieve a better balanced state. It is especially important for disease control and prevention of recurrence. Therefore, I have always wanted to write a sleep article for everyone. Recently I saw Dr. Yin Yan published it in Good Doctor I really like this article online. I contacted the website staff and will forward it to everyone after getting permission. I hope you will find some time to read it and you will definitely gain something and help you "fulfill a dream"...
The text is as follows:
"Dream" "It often gives people an ethereal and mysterious feeling, and it feels like it is foreshadowing something in the dark. In reality, some people dream more; some people dream less; some people have sweet dreams every day; some people have nightmares every night, and wake up more tired than if they had not slept. Why is this all happening?
When does the dream appear during sleep?
After a person falls asleep, the brain also enters a dormant state, but a small number of brain cells are still active. This is the basis of dreams.
Sleep has to go through the process of: waking → light sleep → deep sleep. This process occurs back and forth, from shallow to deep and then from deep to shallow, and so on. There are about 4 to 5 cycles a night, each cycle is about 90 minutes.
And between these alternations of light and dark, there will be a kind of sleep called - rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep). In this stage, the eyes will move rapidly, and most dreams occur in this stage.
dreaming? Not dreaming? Why do people dream?
As long as I sleep, I will dream. People who say they don’t dream have just forgotten.
I just mentioned that most dreams occur in the rapid eye movement sleep stage. If people wake up in this stage, they will generally remember the dream clearly.
will have one or two dreams during the alternating process of light → deep → light sleep. But the brain processes and remembers dreams, so usually people can only remember dreams they had before waking up. That is, if you wake up in the last REM sleep stage in the morning, the memory of the dream remains. Otherwise, people will feel that they have a "dreamless night" or cannot remember their dreams.
I believe many people have a similar experience: waking up from a nightmare in the middle of the night and then falling asleep again, and when they wake up the next day, they will forget most of the content of the dream. This is the result of the brain's processing and memory screening of dreams.
What is the use of dreams to people?
As the saying goes, existence is reasonable. Dreams are a normal and essential physiological and psychological phenomenon of the human body.
When a person is dreaming, the activity of the right cerebral hemisphere is dominant, while when waking up, the left cerebral hemisphere is dominant. During the 24-hour day and night activity of the human body, waking and dreaming appear alternately, so that the dynamic balance of neural regulation can be achieved. If a person really doesn't dream at all, it means there may be something wrong with his right brain.
In addition, dreams are a way of coordinating the balance of the human psychological world, especially having a significant regulating effect on people's attention, emotions and cognitive activities. From the perspective of psychoanalysis psychology, desires that cannot or cannot be satisfied in real life can obtain psychological satisfaction and adjust psychological balance in dreams.
Therefore, dreaming is beneficial to physical health and is one of the important factors in ensuring normal vitality of the body.
Does having more dreams mean poor sleep quality?
Dreams themselves are beneficial and harmless to sleep. But many people said: "I had a dream one night and didn't sleep well." This is not the case. People can dream up to 5 times a night, and the time spent with dreams will not exceed 2 hours, so there is not a lot of time to sleep.
It can be said that it is not dreaming that affects sleep quality, but physical or mental reasons that affect sleep quality, making people remember dreams and feel that they dream often and frequently.
For example, excessive mental stress, nightmares, panic and terrifying dreams may cause people to wake up from sleep. After waking up, it is difficult to fall asleep again, and the brain cannot rest and becomes tired.Many people with neurasthenia often have difficulty falling asleep. When they finally fall asleep, they are awakened by nightmares, which makes them feel groggy and listless during the day. Dreams may even cause hypochondriasis and anxiety, aggravating the condition.
Poor sleep quality, try these 5 tips
❶ Keep a regular schedule and say goodbye to laziness and sleepiness.
Go to bed on time at night, get up on time in the morning, and don’t disrupt your schedule on weekends. Resist the thought of staying in bed or sleeping back. No matter how sleepy you are during the day, don't lie down to sleep to avoid being unable to fall asleep at night and disrupting your sleep cycle.
❷ Cultivate the concept of "bedroom + bed = sleep"
The bed is the place to sleep. Do not read, play with mobile phones and other activities on the bed. Go to bed and lie down when you feel sleepy. If you can't fall asleep, go to another room and try to minimize the time you spend lying awake in bed. Slowly, when you enter the bedroom and see the bed, you can only think of sleeping.
❸ Don’t receive too much stimulating information before going to bed
After 3 pm, refuse coffee and strong tea, and don’t eat too much at dinner. One hour before going to bed, don't make your brain too excited, such as playing competitive games, watching funny variety shows, etc. Exercising can help you sleep, but it’s best to do it in the morning or after dinner, not before going to bed.
❹ Relax, but don’t turn to alcohol
Play some soothing music before going to bed, and take a hot bath to help relax your body and mind.
Don't try to use alcohol to help you sleep. Although alcohol will shorten your sleep time, it will make your sleep shallower. If the light sleep time is extended, the probability of waking up in the middle of the night will be high, making sleep intermittent.
❺ Create a comfortable sleeping environment
● If the light in the bedroom should be dark, you can try adding blackout cloth to the curtains.
● The bedroom should be quiet. If you are a light sleeper, you can try noise reduction earplugs .
● The temperature in the bedroom is 18.~22℃ which is the most comfortable sleeping temperature.
● The mattress should not be too soft, and the pillow should be chosen that is comfortable for you. Of course, you should also consider the health of your lumbar and cervical spine.
(Special thanks to Dr. Yin Yan, Department of Psychology, Seventh People's Hospital of Hangzhou !)
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