General information about sleep

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Sleep is important to our everyday wellbeing, which is why it should be nurtured. Sufficient high-quality sleep is important for learning and creative thinking. Sleep helps people recover from the strains of the waking state. While the body rests, it takes care of its own important tasks.

This is how sleep maintains the body:

• The body recovers its strength from various physical exertions.
• The brain recharges its energy supplies and works through the events of the day.
• Sleeping also improves resistance. Sleep heals, which is why you must sleep a lot when sick.

What constitutes a sufficient amount of sleep depends on the individual, but the average need for sleep is 7–8 hours per night for adults. The most important thing is that you feel well-rested in the morning and alert during the day.

Students + sufficient sleep = impossible?

Studying may seem to consist of performing constantly: study days are long and work on independent assignments goes on late into the night. Time remaining for sleep gets shortened. Study days do not necessarily have regular rhythm either. Many students also work besides their studies – with shifts often set for evenings or nights.

Despite this, it is important to aim for regularity in both your sleep and daily rhythm to prevent sleeping problems. You should adhere to regular times for both going to bed and waking up – on your days off too. This helps your body’s internal clock to stay on time: when is it time to wake up and when to go to sleep.

Please remember that your mind needs to recover after mentally demanding work (such as an exam or writing a thesis). Small, relaxing moments to punctuate studying support sleeping well!

Daily activities affect

Sleep and the waking state affect one another. This is why our activities when awake matter to our sleep. If you want to improve your sleep quality, you should also pay attention to your days.

Do you have the time to process your thoughts? The ways in which we work through our thoughts and emotions during the day have a great impact on our sleep. When things that weigh on our minds are left unprocessed during the day, they enter our minds at night.

The solution could be to take a worrying break during the day. Think about things that weigh on your mind and consider how you could affect your worries yourself. Sharing your worries with friends can help too.

Does your day include exercising? Exercising regularly improves sleep quality, the ability to fall asleep and daytime energy levels. The sleep-improving effects of exercising are thought to be caused by muscle fatigue and psychic relaxation.

What is your meal rhythm like? If we fast or eat too little, hunger will interrupt our sleep at night and make us feel cold easily. On the other hand, too hearty food just before sleep can begin the digestion process, which then keeps us awake and decreases sleep quality.

Keep in mind that you should not fill your days with too much performing. Ensure that your days also include more relaxing moments without the pressures of performing. Excessively hectic days may make it harder to calm down for sleep in the evening.

Temporary sleeplessness is normal

Everyone has occasional stressful or difficult situations in their life that disturb their sleep. This produces sleep deprivation. It is a normal reaction to ongoing or recent changes in life and is nothing to worry about. Temporary sleeplessness is a part of everyone’s life at some point.

Temporary sleeplessness may easily cause you to worry. Your mind becomes cluttered with thoughts such as ‘I won’t be able to sleep this night either’ and ‘I’ll fail tomorrow due to being tired’. However, better thoughts in this situation would be ones like ‘sleep will come’ and ‘I’ll be fine with less sleep for one day’. Temporary sleeping problems usually correct themselves within a short time. A few nights with too little sleep or sleepless nights are not dangerous.

Prolonged sleeplessness requires treatment

When sleeplessness continues for a long time, for weeks, it is considered a sleeping disorder. Sleeplessness is dissatisfaction towards the amount or quality of sleep. The main issue in defining sleeping disorders is whether you feel that you are suffering because of sleeplessness. Typical symptoms of sleeplessness include the following:

• Recurring difficulties in falling asleep
• Intermittent sleep
• Too short or low-quality sleep even when you have the opportunity to sleep

Types of sleeplessness may occur individually or the sleepless person may suffer from all symptoms. If you suffer from continuous sleeplessness, you should ask for help from healthcare professionals.

If you want to improve your sleep quality, you should also pay attention to your days.