Scientists have discovered you may be sleeping more than you think

You may be sleeping more than you think.

We all know that sleep is essential for mental and physical health. Still, one in three U.S. adults report not getting enough B vitamins, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the short term, not getting enough sleep can negatively impact your alertness, judgment, emotions, and cognitive function. But over time, chronic sleep deprivation can lead to heart disease, obesity, neurodegenerative diseases, and depression.

A simple piece of advice is to go to bed early. But for many of us, an earlier night means more time tossing and turning. In fact, according to the American Medical Association, approximately 30 million Americans suffer from insomnia. The good news is that even though it may feel like you’re spending half your nights staring at the ceiling, you may actually be getting more sleep than you think.

In a new study from the University of Montreal, researchers analyzed 20 “good sleepers” to see how they perceived their sleep quality based on their dreams.

“Dreams are an understudied relationship to sleep quality,” study leader Claudia Picard DeLand said in a statement. She says: “Often the focus is on objective measures such as brain activity and sleep stages, but I think we need to look more closely at dream activity and how it affects our perception of sleep.”

In an unpublished study, Picard DeLand and her team woke each participant 12 times during the night and determined whether they were awake or asleep, how deeply they slept, and what they were thinking at the end. , asked how immersed they felt. their dreams. At the same time, researchers measured their brain activity to determine whether they were actually sleeping and where they were in their sleep cycle.

Surprisingly, participants frequently reported being awake when they were actually asleep. This was especially common during the early, dreamless stages of the sleep cycle.

As someone who has suffered from insomnia all his life, Picard DeLand said research like this is critical to reassuring fellow insomnia sufferers. “It was really helpful to be able to see for myself that the participants were asleep and yet it felt like they were still awake, right in front of my eyes,” she said.

Additionally, the team hopes their research will lay the foundation for sleep rehabilitation and dream training to help improve sleep quality.

Their results will be presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) annual meeting in Toronto on April 14.

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