Kautsar Ikrami's Key Ideas from The Sleep Revolution
by Arianna Huffington

1. Light Sleep: You are sleeping but still at a point of wakefulness. You can easily wake up. Your eyes and muscles will still be moving.
2. Slight Deep Sleep: Your eye movements slowly stop, and your body temperature decreases.
3. Slow–wave Deep Sleep: The cessation of muscle and eye movements. If you're woken up, you might likely feel dizzy and disoriented.
4. REM Sleep: It begins about an hour into your sleep. It is characterised by increased blood pressure, heart rate, and faster brain wave frequency. Dreaming takes place at this stage; if you wake up, you are more likely to remember your dreams.

There is an Italian proverb that says, "Bed is medicine."

University of Pittsburgh's research: Sufficient sleep increases the antibody levels of people who received the hepatitis B vaccine. Conversely, sleeping for less than 6 hours made the vaccine abortive.

Researchers from the Universities of Louisville and Chicago: Sleep deprivation in mice injected with cancer cells made cancer grow faster. In addition, lack of sleep affects how the immune system reacts to cancer, making the disease more aggressive.

It affects sperm count and hormone production.

Men with high levels of sleep deprivation experienced a 25% reduction in sperm count. Lack of sleep is also linked with erectile dysfunction.

Dr. Lisa Shives, the founder of Northshore Sleep Medicine: Testosterone is produced during the night. Studies show that a decrease in total sleep can lower a man’s testosterone, and REM sleep is vital to the production and release of testosterone.

Sleep deprivation can lead to sleeping disorders.

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea: People have issues breathing normally because of the blockage in the airway. This leads to snoring most times.
• Central Sleep Apnea: The brain fails to send accurate signals to the muscles that control breathing. This leads to tiredness, inability to concentrate, and illnesses.
• Insomnia: When you constantly find yourself in that situation where you are trying hard to sleep but to no avail.

Your sleeping pattern changes as you age. The National Sleep Foundation did the following breakdown:

• Ages 0–3 months: 14–17 hours.
• Ages 4–11 months: 12–15 hours.
• Ages 1–2 years: 11–14 hours.
• Ages 3–5 years: 10–13 hours.
• Ages 6–13 years: 9–11 hours.
• Ages 14–17 years: 8–10 hours.
• Ages 18–25 years: 7–9 hours.
• Ages 26–64 years: 7–9 hours.
• Ages 65+: 7–8 hours.

Sleep is the major activity of the brain during early development.

Sleeplessness affects a child’s learning, emotional regulation and can lead to infections, high blood pressure, obesity, and other health problems.

Children who slept below 10 hours per night had more behavioral and emotional issues as they got older.

Very common in marriage, our spouses determine when, where, and how we sleep.

The fear of not having sex is one of the primary reasons couples sleep in the same bed. However, if a spouse is experiencing sleep deprivation because of the other, it can also result in troubles in the relationship.

Tips: First, you can use earplugs and noise–canceling headphones to block out sounds that might disturb your sleep. If those fail, you might consider sleeping in a different room.

• Minimize the light in your room. Light reduces melatonin production, which helps promote sleep.
• Avoid gadgets before sleep. Blue light also reduces melatonin production.
• Set the temperature to 60–66 degrees Fahrenheit. Your body temperature gradually reduces at night and returns to normal as you approach morning.
• Do sports. Engaging in regular physical activities.
• Watch what you eat and drink. Going between caffeine and sugar all day hinders a healthy sleep diet because we end up tired but wired at night.

Acupuncture has been used as a sleeping aid.

Emory University: Acupuncture could be up to 93% effective in relieving insomnia.

Center for Addiction and Mental Health: Acupuncture increases melatonin and reduces anxiety.

Stanford: A 6–week mindfulness meditation course helped people sleep faster in 15 instead of 33 minutes.

Mattieu Ricard (The molecular geneticist and the French Buddhist monk): Those who make contemplative retreats in hermitages are far from doing nothing since they constantly train their minds. This means there is less to repair during sleep, and the sleep quality of meditators is more profound.

Stop tying your identity to external things like achievements, success, jobs, marriage, family, etc.

Instead, let your focus shift to you.

When you do that, you will begin to value sleep.