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How did you sleep last night? Your response may depend on how long you were in bed, how much of that time you spent tossing and turning, or whether you felt rested. However, it may also depend on whether you exercised today, the messages on your wearable device, or even when you were asked.
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“Everyone has a different definition of sleep quality, and that’s the problem,” sleep researchers say. nicole tan At the University of Warwick, UK.
While sleep quality and what defines it is still a mystery that scientists are still trying to figure out, a good night’s rest involves a series of sleep cycles, or distinct sequences of stages of brain activity that you experience during sleep. We know that (see the image below). And for most of us, each stage of these cycles is necessary to wake up feeling refreshed. The average person experiences four to five complete menstrual cycles per night, and any disruption to this can have negative effects on your health in both the short and long term.
“Poor sleep quality is associated with many negative physical health effects,” he says. Jean-Philippe Chapou At the University of Ottawa, Canada. As with what you’d expect from not getting enough sleep (see Why your chronotype is key to knowing how much sleep you need), these include an increased risk of: cardiovascular disease, stroke, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and weight gain.
Although there is no clear consensus on what defines sleep quality, researchers and doctors often analyze sleep using electroencephalograms (EEGs), which track brain activity during sleep.
Source: www.newscientist.com
