It is believed that in order to be alert and rested in the morning, you need to go to bed early the night before.
There is a common belief that an hour of sleep before midnight is equivalent to two hours after 00:00.
But is this really true? Some somnologists doubt it.
What hours of sleep are the most valuable?
Kai Spiegelhalder, an employee of the University Clinic in Freiburg (Germany), says that there is no scientific evidence that sleeping before midnight is more beneficial than after it.
At the same time, he points out certain nuances that are important for a full, healthy sleep.
The specialist calls the first two to four hours of sleep the most valuable.
According to him, they have the most beneficial effect in the process of body recovery.
The somnologist explains this by the fact that it is during these hours that a person is in a prolonged phase of deep sleep.
Notes: the sleep of a healthy adult has 4-6 cycles, each of which lasts from 90 to 110 minutes.
Sleep phases
The cycle is divided into 4 phases. The first is the stage of falling asleep, the transition from wakefulness to sleep.
The second phase is light, when the muscles relax, the heartbeat and breathing slow down.
The third phase is deep sleep. It is at this stage that the greatest restoration of the body occurs.
The last phase is rapid eye movement sleep, which is characterized by increased brain activity, accompanied by dreams.
Spiegelhalder points out that it doesn’t really matter when exactly we go to bed, the main thing is that the sleep is long enough and that the person’s biorhythm is not disrupted.
Even if we go to bed later, the deepest sleep still occurs in the first hours.
That is, the recovery effect will be the same as if you went to bed earlier.
Circadian rhythm
There is an important nuance associated with each person's individual circadian rhythm.
For example, night owls feel better if they go to bed late, while early birds feel better if they go to bed earlier.
Constantly changing your bedtime, disrupting your circadian rhythm, can harm your health, warns a somnologist.
In particular, according to him, the risk of “acquiring” cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, problems with the immune system, etc. increases.
From all of the above, it follows that it is not important whether you go to bed early or late, but how regularly you go to bed at a certain time, as well as the stability of your sleep.
