How To Tell If You Got A Good Night’s Sleep

If you’re with a friend who yawns constantly, or you notice your spouse has coffee in the morning, your first question might be, “How much sleep did you get last night?” But maybe a better question would be, “How good did you have you slept last night?”

While getting the right amount of sleep is vital to our overall health and well-being, sleep quality is just as important. Unfortunately, there are many people who don’t know what good sleep really is.

Terry Cralle, a Registered Nurse and Board Certified Clinical Sleep Educator Advice for better sleep remarked, “Too many sleep-deprived people lose their point of reference when it comes to waking up refreshed.” Waking up tired, drinking caffeine, and hoping for the best has become the status quo for many. But it doesn’t have to be that way – you just need to know what to look for in a good night’s sleep.

Note: The content on Sleepopolis is intended to be informative in nature, but is not intended to replace medical advice and supervision from a trained professional. If you think you are suffering from a sleep disorder or medical condition, please contact your doctor immediately.

The importance of sleep

If you’ve ever heard a famous neuroscientist Matthew Walker If you’re talking about sleep, you might be familiar with his stance that sleep should be “selected against sleep” throughout evolution. In a podcast with Rich roleWalker notes that not only do we not do life-sustaining things while we sleep, like forage, find a mate, reproduce, or take care of our young, but sleep states make us incredibly vulnerable to “predators.”

So why do we sleep and why is sleep so important?

Interestingly, with so much talk, research, and babble about sleep, scientists have yet to clearly define why we sleep—or why it wasn’t “chosen,” so to speak.

What we do know is that sleep is essential for our bodies (and brains) to perform at their best. We also know that while we sleep our bodies go into active repair mode, essentially doing a bit of biological housekeeping. We may be asleep and “offline,” but our bodies and brains are flutter with activity.

While we sleep, our bodies and brains

• Sort and process information of the day
• form memories
• Unleash the hormones and proteins our bodies need to repair themselves and fight disease
• Get rid of toxins
• Work to restore our energy

There’s a lot going on while we sleep, so it’s easy to see why getting enough sleep is so important. While the amount of sleep we need changes throughout our life stages (infants and teens need more sleep), this is generally recommended Adults get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night.

Those who fail to meet this minimum for an extended period of time will quickly find that insufficient sleep can severely impact your physical and mental health.

Short-term effects of insufficient sleep contain:

• Excessive daytime sleepiness
• irritability
• impairment of perception and judgment
• attention deficit/poor concentration,
• Limited motor skills

Long-term consequences of not getting enough sleep These include more serious health problems, such as

• obesity
• diabetes
• cardiovascular disease
• High blood pressure
• Stroke
• depression

sleep quantity and sleep quality

It’s clear that the amount of sleep we get is incredibly important, but so is the quality of our sleep. You can certainly get seven or eight hours of sleep a night, but if it’s fragmented or low-quality due to stress, bad sleep hygieneor sleep apneayou may struggle with some of the same effects as those who don’t get the right amounts of sleep.

“Many people suffer from fatigue and morning drowsiness, often despite getting enough sleep,” said Yunha Kim, founder and CEO of reset hibernation. “Because it’s not just the amount of sleep that determines how rested you feel in the morning. Sleep quality also plays a role, and most people don’t pay enough attention to it.”

Kim suggests that those who wonder why they’re always sleepy may be struggling with fatigue due to poor sleep quality, which often stems from not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep throughout the night.

This is how you can tell if you slept well

According to Kim, “A good night’s sleep means you were able to fall asleep quickly, slept through the night, and are able to focus and complete all your tasks the next day.” If you’ve been wondering, falling asleep quickly means you’re awake no more than 30 minutes lying down and sleeping through the night means you haven’t woken up more than once (that you can remember). Here are a few signs to look out for throughout the day that may indicate that you’ve actually been relaxing.

You feel refreshed and awake shortly after waking up

as dr shelby harris, Director of Sleep Health at Sleepopolispoints out that anyone can feel light-headed when they wake up – it’s how you feel shortly afterwards that can tell you if you slept well.

“You can actually still be pretty groggy when you wake up in the morning, even if you’ve had a good night’s sleep,” says Harris. “If about half an hour to 45 minutes later you’re feeling rested and ready to start your day, that’s a good sign.”

Harris also says that your peak alertness time should be around three hours after you wake up, and that it’s normal to have energy dips throughout the day. “If you feel rested and refreshed most of the day, but not all of the day, then you’re probably on the right track,” she says.

You can concentrate

Poor sleep quality can affect your ability to concentrate, stick to a specific task, or remember information. according to dr Chelsie Rohrscheib, the head sleep expert waspwhen you can “concentrate without effort [….]concentrate and retrieve information”, then you probably slept well.

You feel energized and ready to start the day

“You should also feel physically energetic and be able to complete routine physical tasks with little to no effort,” says Rohrscheib. “If you exercise, you should be able to get through a workout without it [too much of a] Battle.”

They have good sleep efficiency

sleep efficiency (SE) is the ratio of total sleep time (TST) to time in bed (TIB). If your sleep efficiency hovers around 85 percent, meaning you slept 85 percent of the time you were in bed, then you’re probably in pretty good shape. For example, if you spend eight hours in bed and sleep six of those hours, your SE is 75 percent.

What are the signs of poor sleep quality?

according to dr Reed disk can be signs of poor sleep quality Symptoms include:

• excessive daytime sleepiness
• poor cognitive function (eg, you may have trouble concentrating or remembering things)
• Little energy
• Irritability or a reduced mood

“Chronic poor sleep quality can have a greater impact on your health and well-being over time,” she adds, pointing out that it can increase your risk of diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

How to improve sleep quality

Your sleep quality can increase and decrease for a number of reasons. If you feel like you’re not getting a good night’s sleep, Cralle suggests rethinking your sleep hygiene to improve the quality of your sleep.

How to improve your sleep quality:

• Maintain consistent sleep and wake times to ensure adequate sleep
• Have a bedtime routine – they’re not just for kids; They help young and old alike transition smoothly from wakefulness to sleep.)
• Optimize your sleeping environment – keep your bedroom as dark as possible and do everything possible to eliminate or minimize noise. Keep your bedroom cool, tidy, and clutter-free (clutter is distracting).
• Invest in one comfortable lying surface and linens. We spend a whopping 56 hours a week sleeping – so make every hour count.
• Get daily exercise
• Practice yoga or tai chi
• Get natural sunlight during the day
• Receive pets out of bed or from the bedroom if they disturb your sleep
• Track your sleep – within reason. While sleep trackers can provide some useful insight into specific patterns or routines you might want to tweak, if you find you’re so concerned about what the sleep may be, you might want to talk to your doctor about how to improve your sleep sleep tracker says. He or she will be able to create a plan that meets your specific needs.

The last word from Sleepopolis

While most sleep resources focus heavily on sleep quantity, sleep quality is just as important. Over time, deficiencies in the quality and quantity of sleep can lead to a variety of physical and mental health problems. Ideally, you should aim to get seven or more hours of sleep each night. When you wake up in the morning, take a moment to think about how you are feeling. If you wake up refreshed and energized, and your concentration and focus remain strong throughout the day, chances are you slept well. If you find yourself feeling drowsy, moody, irritable, and inattentive and focused, you should reconsider your assessment sleep hygiene to give your sleep quality a boost.