Why can not I go to sleep and how to deal with it

Lack of sleep leads to disturbances of concentration, memory and immune system, and even shorten the lifespan. It is worth to understand the reasons that prevent us from sleep, and eliminate them.

Matthew Walker (Matthew Walker)

Neuroscientist, director of the Center for Sleep at the University of California at Berkeley. Author of the book "Why do we sleep."

What if you can not sleep

It should not be a long stay in bed if you are not going to sleep. Brain - is an associative memory. If you're lying in bed for a long time, the brain will perceive it as a place to awake rather than sleeping.

Get out into the other room and read a book. Do not use gadgets. Go to bed only when you want to sleep. Thus, the brain learns to associate the bedroom again with a dream.

If you do not want to go into another room, try to practice meditation. Before, I did not believe that meditation can help to cope with insomnia. So I decided to try this method myself when He was suffering from jet lag while traveling. It turned out that it really is a very efficient way.

Meditation mind soothing, promotes physical relaxation and reduces the natural response of the nervous system ( "fight or flight") to stress, which is the hallmark of insomnia.

Is it possible to compensate for the lack of sleep, if you sleep longer the next day

Unfortunately, we can not compensate for lost sleep trying to sleep in a couple of days or a week. If you take away your eight-hour sleep, then, no matter how you tried to compensate for his absence the next night, you will not work. Our brain is not able to. Even if later you wake longer lack of full sleep will affect your health.

Can I let teenagers sleep late on weekends

Parents of teens often criticized for the fact that they spend a precious weekend on sleep. However, it is wrong for two reasons.

Firstly, it is not their fault, it is a feature of their nature. That it makes adolescents sleep till noon. Secondly, the way a teenager trying to compensate for lack of sleep due to early rise to class. Ideally, therefore, we have to change the approach to educational practice.

Why is the number decreases with age and the quality of sleep

The older a person is, the less the duration of its sleep. Some people believe that age is reduced need for sleep. But this is not the case. In 60 or 80 years, our body requires the same amount of sleep as 40 years. Just the brain loses its ability to generate the necessary amount of sleep.

With age also deteriorates the quality of sleep. Man begins to frequently wake up at night because of the pain or frequent urge to the bathroom.

The aging process is disturbed phase of slow, or deep, sleep. By age 50, the number of deep sleep It may be reduced by 40-50% in comparison with, for example, with adolescence. And in 70 years this number is likely to reach 90% already.

Do the hypnotic sound sleep

Unfortunately, sleeping pills give a false sense of sleep. They represent a wide range of chemicals that have the sedative effect. Natural sleep is very different from a dream caused by sedatives.

How caffeine affects sleep

Everyone knows that caffeine prevents a person to fall asleep. Some argue that they might as well have a cup of coffee before going to bed and sleep well. However, this is a very dangerous practice: under the influence of caffeine sleep will not be as deep.

After drinking coffee before going to sleep, a person wakes up overwhelmed. Then he pulled back with a cup of drinkWithout realizing that the cause of this condition is the portion of yesterday's caffeine.

How alcohol affects sleep

Although alcohol and has a sedative effect, it does not contribute to a healthy sleep, but on the contrary it degrades. Because of the alcohol a person can often wake up at night, with the morning do not even remember it. Therefore, it may not even realize how badly he slept.

In addition, due to the use of alcohol decreases the duration of REM sleep, which is important for the normal functioning of the body.