What are the key things we need to know about getting a great night’s sleep?

How do you get a good quality sleep that will leave you feeling re-vitalised and refreshed?

We all know that good quality sleep improves our overall wellness and increases happiness in our daily lives. In very simple terms, it helps us to have a productive day. So, sleep and health become closely related. Makes sense, right?

 We also know that a lack of sleep affects our mental and physical wellbeing and that good quality sleep increases and improves our mental and physical health. We must let our body and mind rest, before pushing it to achieve new things or even just to carry out our regular daily routine.

Good quality sleep is important for our mental health. It’s like rebooting a computer. Sleep provides our bodies with the time it needs to regain its focus and stability as well as preparing our mind for the new day ahead of us. A study by the US Health Department found, that sleep improves our learning, because it allows the brain time to build new information pathways, that make it easier for us to succeed and gain our focus. 

Good quality sleep impacts our physical health. Sleep balances our hormones and regulates our blood sugar levels. It supports our growth and development, while fighting obesity and it also reboots and recovers our immune system. Worldwide, studies as well as those here in the UAE found that ongoing sleep deficiency and stress are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke. It’s a sad truth, but by knowing this you can act and get yourself a better nights sleep.

Temperature is also an issue here in the UAE. While outside temperatures generally stay above 30 degrees during the day, our bodies have to cope with the varying AC changes while we are indoors. For UAE residents it can be quite challenging to adapt and sleep properly because of these temperature fluctuations. Our helmii mattress helps because of the air flow ventilation system we have built into the foam base. As we sleep our bodies can transfer these temperature patterns into our sleep, so a mattress that can help us regulate our temperature is a great help in getting us the high quality sleep we require.

Our helmii mattresses are made of renewable natural raw materials, including soy bean oil and a refreshing natural crème, which help in cooling our bodies down and absorbing body heat.

If you’ve not been sleeping well, take a look at your mattress and pillows, investing in your sleep will have a huge impact on your health and wellbeing so you should look at investing in a good quality mattress as an investment in your health.

Here are some fun sleep facts: 

1. The record for the longest period of time without sleep stands at 264.4 hours and was set by a high school student in 1964.

2. Most parents lose between 400 and 750 hours of sleep in each child’s first year.

3. Only a doctor or medical professional can tell if someone is actually awake or asleep because we are capable of taking short cat naps with our eyes open and without losing our balance.

4. If it takes you less than 5 minutes to fall asleep at night, you are sleep deprived. On average, it takes people between 10 and 15 minutes to fall asleep.  If you are falling asleep faster than that it means you are overtired.

5. Doctors didn’t discover REM (rapid eye movement) sleep until the 1950’s and this discovery was a leap forward in sleep science.

6. Although there are several stages of sleep, we do not progress through them in order while asleep.  Most people will initially move from stage 1 to stage 4 in order the first time, they will then jump back and forth between them.

7. Newborn babies spend amount 65% of their sleep in REM.

8. Although scientists used to believe that we only dreamt while in REM, new research indicates that we may actually be dreaming the entire time we are asleep.

9. We have no conclusive evidence as to whether animals dream or not.

10. No one yet knows why we dream or what purpose dreams serve but there are several hypotheses.  The theories claim we dream to help our memory, to sort through and store experiences, to “clean out” the unneeded information in our brains, among other things.

11. British researchers have developed a pair of glasses that can essentially reset a person’s body clock by projecting a ring of bright light that mimics the sunrise into the eye.  The spectacles have been used with soldiers and can allow someone to go without sleep for as long as 36 hours, assumedly without experiencing functional deficits.

12. You only have to be awake for 17 straight hours to begin experiencing the symptoms of sleep deprivation.

13. Noises at night, especially those in the first and last hours of sleep can disrupt the function of your immune system, even if they don’t cause you to wake up.

14. Light exposure, even just to the glowing numbers on an alarm clock can cause sleep disturbance even if it doesn’t wake you up.

15. You may find it very difficult to fall asleep if the temperature of your room is too high.  In order to fall asleep, our body temperature has to decrease slightly and if the room is too warm it can keep this from happening and keep us from sleeping.