Steven Puetzer/Getty Photos
How did you sleep final night time? Your response may rely on how lengthy you had been in mattress, how a lot of that point you spent tossing and turning or whether or not you’re feeling rested. But it surely may additionally rely on whether or not you exercised right this moment, what your wearable gadget says, or if you find yourself being requested.
This text is a part of particular collection investigating key questions on sleep. Learn extra right here.
“Everyone has their own definition of sleep quality – and that is the problem,” says sleep researcher Nicole Tang on the College of Warwick, UK.
Although sleep high quality and what defines it’s a puzzle scientists are nonetheless determining, we do know {that a} good night time’s relaxation includes a collection of sleep cycles, the distinct succession of phases of mind exercise we expertise throughout sleep (see diagram beneath). And for many of us, every stage of these cycles is important to get up feeling refreshed. The common individual experiences 4 to 5 full cycles throughout an evening and disrupting these can include well being penalties, each within the brief and long run.
“Poor sleep quality is associated with many adverse physical health outcomes,” says Jean-Philippe Chaput on the College of Ottawa, Canada. Much like what you’ll be able to anticipate from not sleeping sufficient (see “Why your chronotype is key to figuring out how much sleep you need”), these embrace a better threat of heart problems, stroke, hypertension, sort 2 diabetes and weight acquire.
Though there is no such thing as a definitive consensus on what defines sleep high quality, researchers and docs continuously analyse sleep with an electroencephalogram (EEG), which tracks mind exercise throughout sleep…
