The importance of sleep

As teenagers we loved to sleep in, as newly married couples, we take for granted those late Saturday ‘sleep-in’s’ but in reality we never understand how much we love sleep until it evades us. This generally begins somewhere in the last trimester of pregnancy and gets a whole lot worse as a new parent, before we get a full night sleep again.

Why is it that one craves sleep and is it just a luxury? Do we really need sleep as much as we think we do? Well the truth is we can be trained to function on less sleep and can probably get by on 6 hours of good solid deep sleep. The problem is that when our babies are little, the longest we may sleep for is only two hours or maybe at a stretch 4 hours without waking. It is this broken sleep that affects us so badly.

The reason broken sleep is so detrimental is that sleep is genuinely healing for our body and mind. During a long period of unbroken sleep, we cycle from light sleep to deep sleep and back many times. When in the light sleep state we dream and our amazing brains process and lay down memories of the experiences we have during the day. This sleep state is essential for memory and learning. We reach this state soon after falling asleep and if we have 8 hours of unbroken sleep, we will spend more and more time in this state, towards the morning, which is why you feel like you dream more when on holiday or if you sleep in late.

But it is the deep sleep state that holds the key to our sanity – literally. Whilst awake we experience many sensory and emotional and learning experiences which are laid down as a synapse or connection in our brains. You can imagine after a day how many connections are formed. The thing is that many of these connections are redundant and will not be used. During the deep sleep state, our wonderful brains prune or cut connections that are not commonly used and are useless, freeing up energy and connections for more useful function.

When sleep deprived, we are more likely to become:

• Over stimulated – Because we have too many connections
• Fatigued – Due to too many connections draining our energy
• Irritable – Avoiding taxing or demanding situations as we simply don’t have the reserves to cope
• Forgetful – Memories not laid down well in light sleep

Just as we as adults need our sleep so do our babies – to learn and lay down memories (done in the light sleep state) and to prune connections to avert overstimulation.

Is sleep important – yes – it’s not just in your mind – your brain literally thrives on sleep. Sleep Sense provides solutions for sleep problems, as do many of the Baby Sense products.