Background
Sleep is a vital physiological process.
There are three theories that describe the purpose of sleep: inflammation/immune response, energy metabolism, and neural plasticity.
Immune response theories state that sleep disturbances may lead to chronic inflammatory disease and sleep reduces the incidence of inflammation. Energy metabolism theories suggest that sleep is required for the restoration of energy, while neural plasticity theories state that sleep is critical for memory, learning, and synaptic homeostasis.
Everyone progresses through multiple cycles of sleep during the course of one night.
There are two major phases of sleep: non rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM).
The body regulates sleep with sleep-wake homeostasis and the circadian alerting system. These two factors directly affect how much your body feels a need for sleep, reflecting your biological clock, the time of day, your light exposure, and how long you’ve been awake.
Insomnia, in particular, is a significant social issue and prevalence rates are high across the world.
The prevalence of insomnia has been shown to range from approximately 9 to 50% in population surveys in the United States (US) and Europe.
Studies suggest up to 19% of U.S. adults don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis.
There are three theories that describe the purpose of sleep: inflammation/immune response, energy metabolism, and neural plasticity.
Immune response theories state that sleep disturbances may lead to chronic inflammatory disease and sleep reduces the incidence of inflammation. Energy metabolism theories suggest that sleep is required for the restoration of energy, while neural plasticity theories state that sleep is critical for memory, learning, and synaptic homeostasis.
Everyone progresses through multiple cycles of sleep during the course of one night.
There are two major phases of sleep: non rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM).
The body regulates sleep with sleep-wake homeostasis and the circadian alerting system. These two factors directly affect how much your body feels a need for sleep, reflecting your biological clock, the time of day, your light exposure, and how long you’ve been awake.
Insomnia, in particular, is a significant social issue and prevalence rates are high across the world.
The prevalence of insomnia has been shown to range from approximately 9 to 50% in population surveys in the United States (US) and Europe.
Studies suggest up to 19% of U.S. adults don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis.