You might not get quality sleep if you constantly feel tired despite getting plenty of sleep and feel like your muscles aren’t growing even with regular exercise.
Our bodies need rest, which comes in the form of sleep. When we fall asleep, all bodily functions, except for the minimal activities necessary to sustain life, such as heartbeat and breathing, go into a state of rest.
This act of sleeping alleviates physical fatigue, and tired or injured muscles recover and grow. Therefore, it is recommended to have about 8 hours of sleep per day.
However, sometimes you may feel tired even if you get enough sleep. This is because you’re not getting deep or ‘quality’ sleep. If you don’t sleep deeply, fatigue won’t disappear, and muscle growth and the secretion of growth hormones won’t occur properly.
Sleep is divided into non-REM and REM sleep, which cycle four times. For the first 1-5 minutes after we fall asleep, we’re in the very light stage of non-REM sleep. The next stage is the second stage of non-REM sleep, which lasts about 25 minutes, and our muscles relax in preparation for deep sleep. Once our muscles are fully relaxed, we enter the third stage of non-REM sleep, which is so deep that we wouldn’t wake up even if lightly hit. After this stage, we enter REM sleep.
Once we fall asleep, this four-stage cycle repeats 4-5 times, and the stage where muscle recovery and the secretion of growth hormones occur is the deep third stage of non-REM sleep. To improve sleep quality, it’s essential to increase the duration of the third stage of non-REM sleep, also known as “slow-wave sleep.”
The first step to increase slow-wave sleep is “carbohydrate control.” According to a systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression analysis of the effects of carbohydrates on sleep, the duration and proportion of slow-wave sleep were higher when carbohydrate intake was lower. When carbohydrate intake was high, total sleep time did not differ, but the duration and proportion of REM sleep increased.
The second step is to sleep with pink noise playing. Pink noise is a noise level evenly played across the playback frequency band. It is created by attenuating and correcting white noise by 3dB per octave, making all frequency bands sound at the same level in actual hearing. In a study on auditory stimuli and slow-wave sleep, pink noise effectively increased the proportion of slow-wave sleep.
The third step is to take a warm shower. Showering with warm water between 40-42 degrees Celcius (104-107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) about 1-2 hours before bedtime improves sleep quality.
In addition, caffeine, which stimulates the nervous system and prevents muscle relaxation, should not be consumed at least 6 hours before bedtime, and naps longer than 30 minutes can negatively affect sleep quality and should be avoided.
By. Soo Jung Shin
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