Nidra Charya

 The fourth stage is the most unique stage as this is the stage when we have vivid dreams. Our eyes rapidly move behind the eyelids and brain activity is heightened. At this stage, brain activity is very similar to when we are awake.  A total of 25% time of our sleep is occupied by REM sleep. Good quality of REM sleep is necessary for good memory and learning efficiency. This sleep stage is also responsible for neural development. This is another reason why we shouldn't make a habit of sacrificing our sleep aiming to boost our learning efficiency, as though in short term, more work can be done, but in the long term our overall cognitive ability is compromised.  It is not at all necessary to worry about individual sleep stage duration. As long as we get an appropriate duration of over all sleep, our body will automatically manage the individual stages. Exceptions to this are when suffering from sleep disorders like apnea, or, consuming alcohol can adversely impact REM slee...

  So, the first stage! Its a very mild stage that lasts 5-7 minutes at an average, provided you are not disturbed. A person is easy to wake at this stage, so annoying siblings stay away👿. The body is not fully relaxed, though physical and mental activity slows down. So while a person technically gets slow and stupid the laze is beneficial to both the mind and the body. In CONTROLLED, RATIONAL DURATIONS! Remember. This stage is NREM(no rapid eye movement) and occupies the least duration of your sleep. Stage 1 is followed by stage 2, as the person begins to go into deeper sleep. This stage is marked by a drop in body temperature. It lasts around 25 mins in the first cycle and progressively gets longer. Ultimately, it comprises almost half of your sleep duration (around 45%). After stage 2, a person falls into N3(stage 3) sleep. At this point, it is tough to wake someone up. Physically and mentally, a person becomes even more relaxed, along with decreased blood pressure and breathing...

As I mentioned previously, there are 4 stages of sleep Stage type A.K.A. Duration(undisturbed) Stage 1 NREM N1 7-8 min Stage 2 NREM N2 15-25 min Stage 3 NREM N3, slow-wave-sleep(SWS), deep sleep 20-40 min Stage 4 REM REM sleep 10-60 min   Stage 1-3 are NREM, as in non rapid eye movement. Basically this means that only in stage 4 is there rapid movement of the eyes which is caused due to vivid dreaming. All 4 stages make up one sleep cycle and at least 4 cycles are required per night for proper sleep. Every cycle on an average takes 90-120 min and this 4 sleep cycles take 6-8 hours to complete. More information on these stages will be there in further articles.  Incomplete/ disturbed cycles can lead to tiredness during the day. Chronic(permanent) disruption in the circadian rh...

Now, it was mentioned earlier, how the circadian rhythm is sort of like the body's 'internal clock'. elaborating.... ABOUT THIS 'CLOCK' Firstly, this so called clock is not an isolated💀contraption buried somewhere in the body, rather its cleverly spread throughout. Imagine a  main clock that is connected to all the other clocks. Now, this main clock here is present in the hypothalamus(a region in the brain🧠), while the other clocks called the peripheral clocks are distributed to various organ and tissue systems. There are also smaller units called clock genes that are present in almost all cells.  These contain special proteins that are produced and deteriorate in a constant 24 hour cycle. This is used to govern the rhythm. This rhythm is affected by many external factors, the most major of them being exposure to 💡light. when we are in the dark, a hormone called melatonin is released, causing sleepiness😴. Inversely, when we are exposed to light, melatonin reced...

We all know that the prescribed ideal sleep is of 6-8 hours, this has been beat into our minds since childhood.  HOW DOES THIS WORK? Remember we discussed how sleep basically resets the body in the previous post? We found that all that happened throughout the day is properly processed at night during sleep. To do the said processing, the body undergoes a cycle called the sleep cycle.  This cycle comprises of a total of 4 stages (to be discussed later) and has an avg. duration of 90-120 mins (hour and a half - 2 hours). It takes 3-4 repetitions of this cycle to get the job done. Hence, we have 6-8 hours. CONCLUSIONS SOME IDIOTS (LIKE YOURS TRULY) MAKE If I sleep for 3 hours tonight and 12 hours tomorrow night, all the processing left in today's quota can be completed tomorrow! 😁 If I barely slept tonight, I could recover by sleeping all day! 6 hours is the minimum. If I make a goal of sleeping as much as I can, it is completely fine and ...

THE POPULAR OPINION It is commonly known that sleep is body's 'off-mode'. The dictionaries would say it is a state when the body is physically inactive, nervous function is minimal, and consciousness is suspended. This leads to sleep being regarded as useless waste of hours🕒 where you are basically doing nothing, and powering through with sheer will and caffeine is seen as the height of productivity....  ...No. This practice is exceedingly detrimental to our well-being in general. In the long run, this will cause depression and a feeling of ever existing fatigue. Now, the question arises...why. REALITY Sleep is not simply an ''off state'' or ''an inactive state''. It is more like a complex ''reset process''. Imagine our life is like a wind up spring key toy, and sleep is when we load the key again so it can function. When we sleep, all our day's events are processed properly, and energy is restored. This is incredibly imp...

 INTRODUCTION So, sleep. Generally considered a pretty mundane topic, yet a major issue in mine as well as many others' lives. To give you some context , I am a class 11 student pursuing the medical stream , and I am sure many of you now know where I am going with this😏. To those that don't, let's just say I was shocked to find that a human being can survive on 4 hours of sleep and 2 cups of tea (my current situation)   as opposed to the 10 hours I was used to last year. Yep, studies have a whole different meaning in my life now. But. My parents didn't seem as impressed as I thought they would be😅. I'm serious, the record player(my parents) that used to demand 'study more' started to nag 'sleep more' and 'need to go to bed on time'. I was confused. I have started to think this is going to continue regardless of what I do, but then again their life is not exactly all rest and relaxation, and they are probably speaking from experience. So I ...