>> We spend one-third of life sleeping.
The following videos will discuss why sleep is important, what we know about the biology
of sleep, and what are some of the common sleep disorders.
We hope that you will have a better understanding of the benefits of sleep
and how to make sure you are getting the right amount of quality sleep
to maximize your health and happiness.
You might have wondered, as many people do, why we need to sleep.
Why is it so important?
You will spend nearly a third of your life sleeping, that's a lot of time.
Think about it, when you sleep, you're unaware of your external surroundings.
You lose all perception of the outside world.
In fact, as soon as you fall asleep, most of your senses are turned off.
You're unaware of the sights, and the sounds, and the smells around you.
This is an extremely dangerous state to be in, especially if you're prey
to a larger animal on a food chain.
This is why most animals find a safe place to sleep, why we, as human,
sleep in room in safe environment.
Why would you naturally turn off all of your senses
if sleep weren't critically important for maintaining health.
This gives you reason to learn about sleep and all of its benefits.
Sleep increases your concentration levels.
This allows you to learn and focus in school, it boosts your immune system
so that you can avoid getting sick, and thirdly, it increases your emotional wellbeing.
During sleep, human growth hormone is released from your brain.
It helps your body grow, repair damage, and build muscle.
The most important function of sleep on the brain is its role in learning and memory.
Memory formation is broken down into three processes.
The first is encoding.
This happens when you're awake and take in new information.
The second is consolidation.
This happens when you sleep, and the new information is stored in your brain.
The third is retrieval, which is when the stored information in your brain is accessed
and recalled or, in other words, when you remember the information.
The deepest stage of non-REM sleep, known as slow wave sleep,
is when memory consolidation happens.
How does this work?
Sleep promotes the formation of new connections between brain cells.
These connections are called synapses.
Synapses are where your memories are stored.
It's been found that more synapses are formed when well-rested versus a sleep deprived state.
Therefore, when studying for exams, you should keep in mind that an extra hour
of late-night studying might be doing more harm than good.
You might be surprised that while sleep is a natural process,
more than half of all adults claim that they do not get enough sleep.
This is why it's so important that you learn about the mechanisms of sleep.
The amount of sleep you need actually changes throughout your life; depending on your age
and how much energy you expend in a day.
Infants need about 16 hours of sleep a day,
while teenagers need about nine hours on average.
Adults tend to only need about seven to eight hours a night.
The amount of sleep you need also increases
if you've been deprived of sleep in the previous days.
On average, you should get one hour of sleep for every two hours you spend awake.
This is a 1:2 ratio.
So, say your day is 16 hours long.
You wake up at 7 A.M. and you go to bed at 11 P.M. This means
that you should get 16 divided by 2, which is 8 hours of sleep.
This is a good way to keep track of how much sleep you need on a day to day basis.