It can be challenging to get the recommended eight hours of sleep every night if you are one of those who frequently wish there were more hours in the day. Sleeping for 7-8 hours a night can make a huge difference in our daily lives.
Adequate sleep decreases stress levels and increases energy levels, allowing you to face whatever the day brings with strength and motivation.
Why Is Sleep Essential?
Ideally, adults between the ages of 18 and 60 should sleep at least seven hours at night to avoid sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation can impact your health.
During sleep, proteins called cytokines are produced in the body, which is used as fuel by white blood cells. Thus, strengthening the immune system. Not enough sleep can affect cytokine production, making you more susceptible to infection.
Here is why you should maintain healthy sleeping habits:
1. Sleep is Restorative
Your body cells can repair and rebuild themselves during sleep. The lymphatic system gets cleared during this time, boosting immunity. Sleep allows muscles to improve themselves, synthesise proteins, grow tissues and release hormones.
2. Reduces Stress
A lack of sleep impacts mental clarity and the ability to cope with stressful situations. The lack of sleep makes it hard to concentrate, regulate moods, and make decisions.
3. Improves Memory
While sleeping, your brain processes all the information gathered during waking hours, creating connections that can enhance your memory.
4. Aids in Healthy Weight Management
As a result of inadequate sleep, your body produces hormones that affect hunger and appetite, including:
Leptin: The hormone that suppresses appetite and boosts energy expenditure.
Ghrelin: One of the hormones that stimulate the desire of eating.
Inadequate sleep can cause a drop in your leptin levels and a rise in your ghrelin levels, affecting your weight.
5. Prevents Illnesses
Lack of sleep drives you more tending to sickness because your immune system doesn't function at its best. Many chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease, are related to lack of sleep.
6. Important for Your Mental Health
A lack of sleep can increase the severity of mental health problems. Sleep problems, such as paranoia and hallucinations, usually are worsened by mental health issues.
How Does the Sleep Cycle Work?
The sleep cycle lasts approximately 90 minutes and occurs four or five times during the night. The length of a sleeping cycle varies for every individual, and each sleep cycle has different phases.
Do not stress if your sleep patterns don't fit into some googled idea of a standard or perfect sleep cycle.
Most adults require approximately 7 hours of sleep every night, while teenagers need 9 hours because their brains are still developing.
Compared to other groups, babies have the fastest developing brains, for which they require up to 16 hours of sleep daily.
Following are stages of the sleep cycle:
- Stage 1: Light sleep is the first stage of the sleep cycle, lasting between five and ten minutes on average During this stage, the body and mind slow down, making us feel relaxed.
- Stage 2: During the second stage of sleep, still called light sleep, eye movement, brain waves, and muscle activity begin to slow down so the brain can prepare for deep sleep.
- Stage 3 and 4: It is more difficult to wake up during slow-wave sleep's third and fourth stages. During this portion of sleep, the body muscles relax so that the joints relax and breathe, blood pressure and body temperature decrease significantly.
- Stage 5: During the last phase of sleep, the body enters REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. We dream and experience a host of electrical and physiological responses similar to waking up in REM sleep. Heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing can become irregular, fast, and shallow.
How to Sleep 8hrs in 4hrs?
You might wonder if it's possible to get the benefits of a whole night's rest in half the time or how to sleep 8hrs in 4hrs. It can cause sleep deprivation, but you can reduce the side effects of not getting enough sleep by increasing the quality of your sleep.
So, while you can definitely not sleep 8 hours in 4 hours, you can definitely improve the quality of your sleep which will reduce the side effects of lack of sleep or no sleep.
There's a solution for you here.
1. Comfort Your Body and Mind
You can do numerous things to relax your mind and body, such as yoga light exercise, which increases calmness and negative thoughts.
Sleeping gives rest to your body and brain. Meditation relaxes your body and brain and can reduce the amount of time you spend sleeping. It can set a reasonable schedule for sleep at night. As a result of this method, you won't need to look up how to sleep 8 hours in 4 hours.
2. Reduce Screen Time
Excess screen time not only harms your eyes but is also detrimental to your health. TV and phones emit optical radiation at short wavelengths, blue light, that interferes with melatonin production, the main hormone that regulates your sleep-wake cycle. As a result, it disrupts your sleep-wake cycle.
In order to improve sleep quality, give your eyes a break from watching TV or mobile phone for a long time and before going to bed, give your eyes some time to relax and see natural views. So, if you want to sleep 8 hours in 4 hours, you need to break these unhealthy habits.
3. Make a Proper Environment for Sleeping
The first thing to keep in mind when sleeping is to sleep in a quiet place where no one will disturb you. Therefore, make sure your room is sufficiently dark or as per your choice.
If you want to cover eight hours of sleep in four hours, then use bedding accessories that are smooth on the skin, and help you have a relaxed and comfortable night's sleep. It is Disturbance before sleep, and noise before sleeping can disrupt your sleep pattern. You won't function well the next day if you don't sleep well.
4. Keep Yourself Happy
Keeping yourself happy will make your brain relax and feel better. Spend time with your friends, family, pets or children. Insufficient sleep can contribute to stress levels by adversely affecting sleep quality and duration. Both sleep deprivation and stress can affect mental and physical health.
5. Prefer Light and Healthy Food Before Bedtime
All organs of your body need rest, even the inner organs like the kidneys, liver, and intestines. Sleeping is the process of giving your body a rest so that your body can prepare for the next day. However, overeating will take your digestive organs a longer time to digest.
Therefore, your inner body will be unable to rest properly, so eat as light as possible before heading to your bed.
6. Avoid Coffee or Tea Before Going to Bed
Taking caffeinated tea and coffee before heading to bed can cause delayed sleep. In order to fall asleep faster, avoid tea or coffee before bed.
7. Avoid Drinks or Alcohol
If you drink before bed, your body will fall asleep for sure, but your mind will continue to run, preventing you from getting proper sleep the following day.
8. Make a Proper Bedtime Routine
If you sleep at different times every night, your body will have trouble performing tasks, and your brain will get confused. A good bedtime routine is also essential. A proper bedtime routine is necessary since sleeping is one of the most critical daily tasks on time.
Is It Healthy?
When looking for answers to how to sleep 8 hrs in 4 hrs? It is important to first find if it is healthy for the body. Getting less sleep can be detrimental to your health. Getting less sleep can have impacts like drowsiness, sleep deprivation, sleep disorders, and accidents.
Studies show that most adults need seven to nine hours of sleep each night to maintain positive mental health.
Side Effects of Not Getting Enough Sleep
It often comes as no surprise that lack of sleep can have harmful effects, such as lower productivity. However, some more severe problems may be overlooked. In addition to affecting memory, appearance, weight, and overall health, a lack of sleep can negatively impact people's health.
For students and professionals working long hours, good sleep plays a significant role in keeping them healthy and fit. Some side effects of inadequate sleep include:
- Poor alertness: Missing even an hour of your sleep may make you feel drained.
- Excessive daytime sleepiness: If you are not getting enough sleep, you may become tired and sleepy during the day.
- Impaired memory: Sleep deprivation might cause trouble thinking, remembering, and absorbing information.
- Relationship stress: Your thoughts and communication can be impacted due to inadequate sleep, and you may experience more conflicts and stress about your life and relationships.
- Quality of life: You may become lethargic during the day and may become less likely to participate in normal daily activities or exercise.
- Greater likelihood of car accidents: Operating heavy machinery can be risky, like driving. Every year, thousands of crashes, injuries, and deaths are caused by sleepy driving.
You may experience severe and long-term health problems if you continue to operate without sufficient sleep. Heart failure, heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure, or stroke are the most severe health problems due to chronic sleep deprivation. Other health problems arise from obesity, depression, loss of immunity, and diminished sex drive.
Summing up on how to sleep 8hrs in 4hrs
Over the past decade, technological advances have made everyone compromise on sleep quality and quantity. But sleep is necessary not only for cognitive function but also for physical fitness.
So, how to get 8 hours of sleep in 4 hours? What is the best way to get 8 hours of sleep in 4 hours? There is no such answer as sleep is an integral part of optimal health. In order to achieve healthful sleep, many factors must be considered, including adequate duration, quality, and timing.
Sleeping for only four hours each night is the equivalent of adding eight years to the age of the brain. Research showed that the sleeping habits of more than 10,000 participants were found harmful in the long run.
Not getting enough sleep can cause fatigue, depressive moods, poorer performance during the day, etc. Consequently, acquiring just the correct quantity of good-quality sleep is crucial.
References
- Centres for Disease Control and Prevention; Short Sleep Duration Among US Adults - https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/data_statistics.html
- Jean-Philippe Chaput, November 2018; Sleeping hours: what is the ideal number and how does age impact this? - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6267703/
