Knowledge about the functions of sleep is exploding. Sleep has been found to be necessary for learning and retaining information, allowing the immune system to function effectively; preventing depression, and most importantly of course, relieving fatigue. You cycle through “sleep stages” during the night.

Sleep Architecture

There are five stages of sleep. You normally “cycle” through these about every 90 minutes as an adult. Stages 1 and 2 are light sleep: it’s easy to rouse you. Stages 3 and 4 are deeper, slow wave sleep: rousing you is harder and you may be disorientated on waking. The immune system is busy repairing your body from the usual wear and tear of your day in those deeper sleep stages. REM sleep is associated more with dreaming than the other stages. Having no, or too much REM sleep is associated with depression, and anti depressants can change the amount of REM. REM sleep is important for consolidating memory.

Sleep labs can demonstrate the sleep stages and are also useful for detecting poor oxygenation at night, called: sleep apnea.

Sleep Apnea

Referrals to sleep labs are often overweight people who snore and might not be getting enough oxygen at night. The magic neck circumference in a male is 17 inches: above that they likely need a sleep study. Poor night oxygenation (sleep apnea) is linked to a higher likelihood of heart disease, but headaches and daytime fatigue are problems too. Sleep apnea is treated with a mask or nasal prongs attached to a Continuous Positive Airways Pressure (CPAP) machine delivering air at night, detecting when the body forgets to breath deeply enough whilst sleeping.

Your health care professionals will likely enquire about your sleep habits if you report trouble sleeping as there are actions you can take, often called sleep hygiene, to improve your sleep.

Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene involves habits and conditions around ensuring a long and deep enough sleep to promote good health.

Routine bed times

It’s best to try to aim for going to bed at a similar time each night. Shift workers and travelers suffering jet lag will agree that changing bedtimes is very stressful: so much so that you can feel ill over several days after shift change or returning from a country most of the way around the world.

Eating and Drinking

Eating a heavy meal close to bedtime is likely to keep you awake. Drinking fluids too close to bedtime may get you up to urinate and have trouble getting back to sleep. Caffeinated drinks are to be avoided close to bed time. It’s recommended to drink no more than 2 cups of caffeinated coffee a day and preferably before afternoon. Alcoholic beverages and some medications can also keep you awake.

Cool room. Your body was designed to somewhat drop your temperature during the night with less muscle activity. While it’s important to stay warm, it’s also important to breathe cool air.

Exercise. Exercising earlier in the day rather than just before bed time enhances sleep.

TV and computer. Watching TV and looking at computer screens have the effect of tricking the brain into thinking it’s daylight, so avoid doing this just before bed time if you have difficulty sleeping. Watching stressful TV programs is also likely to keep you awake.

Keep the bedroom for sleep and sex. Have you set your bedroom up to be the office, reading room and exercise station? Your mind will not associate the room with restful activities and it is best to keep it only for sleep (and sex). It’s also advisable to read, if you like to, outside the bedroom and choose reading material which is not stressful.

Avoid day time naps. You may not have slept well the night before but a day time nap may interfere with the following night’s sleep.

When you can’t sleep, get up. It’s better not to toss and turn, getting more frustrated, but to get up, leave the room and do something non stressful in subdued light for about ten minutes before returning to bed. Meditation can be helpful in reducing the mind chatter, or, making a list of concerns before returning to bed.

Medication. Sleep medications may get you to sleep so you stop worrying about it and, if you can break an insomnia episode without continuing to take them, can be useful. They usually lose their effectiveness after just a few weeks if taken every night, yet stopping them can result in rebound wakefulness. Tapering them slowly can help avoid rebound. There are no medications we know of which really increase the restorative sleep phases, the sleep you want.

For insomniacs, mindfully getting to the root of why sleep is elusive may be the best way of ensuring a good night’s sleep.

guest blogger Jackie Gardner-Nix, MD, Ph.D. is the author of The Mindfulness Solution to Pain: Step-by-Step Techniques for Chronic Pain Management .