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Are you by chance the type of person who has difficulty waking up? The alarm clock rings, and you always need to snooze a few times before finally getting out of bed? Or do you feel that even if you wake up the first time, your day only truly begins after a cup of coffee? Or perhaps you find it difficult to maintain focus and concentration during the day, and then you need caffeine to give you that extra boost? If you answered yes to any, or perhaps even more than one, of these situations, I have news for you. These are all classic signs that you are not sleeping enough. But if that's the case, don't feel bad because you are not alone. Two out of every three people in developed countries sleep less than the recommended eight hours per day. And much more than just making you have to drink coffee or be unfocused during the day, sleeping too little can be one of the main factors for diseases you don't want to have, and it can even be making you gain weight. But if you watch this video until the end, you will not only learn fascinating things about the science of sleep, but you will also learn how to sleep better. Which, honestly, we all need. So, go ahead and like the video and get comfortable, because we need to talk about a few things. Just before, besides your sleep being very important, it also helps you be more efficient when studying and learning new things. And if you want to learn new things, I recommend FIAP. Registrations for the 2025 entrance exam are already open, and they have created five pages that cover content such as Dev, Robotics, and even Cybersecurity for you to clear your doubts. And on these pages, you can find more information about FIAP's undergraduate courses, and by filling out the form, you get an e-book with more information about the job market and the career path for each topic. Don't forget to study well and sleep right to acquire knowledge. And now let's get back to the video to explain why sleeping is not a waste of time.
Sleeping seems like a waste of time. It's an average of 8 hours of our day where we are completely vulnerable. And it's scary to think that we will spend a third of our lives unconscious. But sleeping is not a waste of time. Fascinating things happen in your brain while you sleep. If we were to place electrodes on your head to record a night's sleep, at the end of it, we would have something similar to this graph. Simply put, what this graph represents is your brain activity during sleep, which increases and decreases in cycles that last approximately 90 minutes. Each cycle is filled with stages, called REM sleep and non-REM sleep. Both are important. And contrary to popular belief, one is not better than the other. They have different functions. Let's take memory as an example. It is during the periods of low brain activity of non-REM sleep, which can be subdivided into three other phases, that our brain consolidates memories based on facts and events. If you still remember today that the number of Avogadro's constant is 6 times 10^23, or that this object is called a fidget spinner, thank non-REM sleep. But if I give you a guitar or any other instrument and you know how to play it even after years, thank the other sleep stage, REM sleep. It is during REM sleep, which is the most agitated, that our brain consolidates memories involved in performing motor skills, such as playing instruments or riding a bicycle. And this is where we can discuss one of the first problems that not sleeping enough causes. Have you ever felt that you had difficulty learning or storing new information? Especially during a phase of life when you slept little, like high school or college? One of the most important functions of sleep has to do with memory consolidation. While we are awake, we are constantly absorbing new information. Most of it we don't need to remember later. But some are important, such as Avogadro's constant when you were a student. This type of memory is temporarily stored in the brain in a region called the hippocampus. It's like a USB drive, in the sense of having little storage space. And because of this, it fills up very quickly. While you sleep, the brain is working overtime to transform important memories from the hippocampus into long-term memories. But besides serving to establish memories that will stay with you for a long time, sleep is also responsible for emptying the hippocampus, making space in temporary storage for new memorization opportunities. Several studies with students show the importance of sleep both the night before and the night after learning. Students who slept well and in sufficient quantities the night before arrive at class with a greater capacity to learn new information. And students who slept enough after the day of classes were able to consolidate memories like important dates or Avogadro's number. Still, it is very common for students not to sleep the recommended hours per night, which directly impacts learning. And I know that at this point you might even be thinking that this is the students' fault for lacking responsibility or something like that, and that could even be true if we were talking about a few individuals. But when two-thirds of students interviewed in a study claim not to be able to sleep the recommended hours per night, it becomes very clear that the problem goes beyond individual responsibility and commitment. This is what led some schools in the United States to conduct experiments by starting classes later, which led to an improvement in students' academic performance. The time students went to sleep did not change, but the time they woke up did. And by having more sleep time in the morning, their engagement with studies improved in various aspects. And here I need to make a personal note. When I was in high school, my classes started around 7 AM, and I remember how horrible that time was for me, as I have always been more of a night person. In college, classes started later, and it also coincided with the time I had the most fun learning and felt connected to what I was learning. For those of you who are studying, answer me in the comments. What time does your class start? And now I think it's time for us to get into one of the most fascinating parts of this video. Why are people sleeping less? The official recommendation for sleep hours varies with age. It is recommended that children sleep between 9 to 12 hours per day, while adolescents need something between 8 and 10 hours. For adults, the recommendation is 7 hours or more. And this will depend on the individual. As I mentioned a little while ago, several studies done in different countries show that about two out of every three people in industrialized countries sleep less than the recommended hours per day. But why? One of the reasons has to do with how today's world is different from the world in which humans, and consequently sleep, evolved. Every human being experiences daily variations in activity that happen every 24 hours. This is called the circadian rhythm, and represented by body temperature, it looks something like this. Our activity is lower during the night, and this makes a lot of sense considering our history. Humans are not nocturnal animals. Our eyes and senses have not evolved to hunt or perform activities during the night. So it makes sense that we take advantage of daylight hours, when it's light, to carry out our activities, which until a few centuries ago involved ensuring that our basic survival needs would be met. When the sun begins to set, our body starts to produce melatonin, which acts as a kind of signal to sleep. Melatonin concentration in the body increases as it gets dark, reaches a peak near the middle of the night, and then decreases in concentration as the night ends. The problem is that we currently live surrounded by artificial lighting, which impacts melatonin concentration. Instead of starting to receive sleep signals as the sun sets, we turn on the house lights or stay glued to illuminated screens. And speaking of screens, many people blame the blue light from screens for lack of sleep, but much research still needs to be done on this. There seems to be a relationship between blue light and decreased melatonin and, consequently, lack of sleep, but it is not the only culprit. Surely your favorite device has some kind of what is called night mode, which subtracts blue light from the images produced. The result is a more yellowish and warm image, and some cell phones and computers today even do this automatically for you. But if this solved the problem, I probably wouldn't be making this video. It turns out that the content you consume is almost as important as the emission or non-emission of blue light from the screen. It's different to read a book on a screen before bed than to play Dota with your friends. Perhaps this is a scolding for myself. Besides the artificial light from the screen, there is still the simulation component that comes from the content itself being consumed. In general terms, if you want to sleep better, it's better to avoid screens and artificial lighting in the hours before bed. But if you choose to use something with a screen, at least try to choose content that is relaxing. Another factor that impacts the sleep of a good portion of the population is the consumption of a very delicious stimulant. Caffeine. Caffeine works because it has a chemical formula very similar to that of another important molecule, adenosine. During the day, adenosine accumulates in our brain and binds to specific receptors. It is responsible for sleep pressure. Think of the amount of adenosine in the brain as a kind of timer that marks how much time has passed since you woke up. When enough adenosine has accumulated in the brain, you will feel sleepy. Caffeine steals adenosine's space in the receptors, and as a result, you no longer have sleep pressure. That's why it's not very effective to drink coffee when you're already tired, because that means your brain is already full of adenosine molecules in the receptors. Caffeine has a half-life of about 5 hours. That is, if you drink a cup of coffee after dinner at 8 PM, 50% of it will still be in your body at 1 AM. That's why drinking coffee in large quantities or too close to bedtime can cause insomnia. And even if you manage to sleep, it can interfere with the quality of your sleep. But with so many things that negatively influence our ability to sleep, doesn't it seem impossible to sleep well? Calm down, because it's easier than it looks. If you want to sleep better, there are recommended good practices that are based on science, and together they make up what is called sleep hygiene. I will start with things you can do during the day. The first thing that will help you not only sleep better but also improve your overall quality of life is to exercise. It can be running, walking, gym, swimming, or badminton. The important thing is for you to find some physical activity that can fit into your routine and that you will be able to do regularly. The second thing you can do is get sunlight or stay in naturally lit environments whenever possible. Natural lighting helps regulate the circadian rhythm and melatonin release, which facilitate falling asleep at night. And what about things you can do at night? The first is to try to limit artificial lights. If you get home from work at night, try not to turn on all the lights in your house. If you have a smart bulb, you can even make the light more yellowish and with lower intensity, but ideally, it's better to leave it off. In the hours before bed, try to avoid screens. Set a deadline for using them and stick to that rule. When that time comes, read a book or do things that don't involve screens, like, I don't know, preparing the things you'll need to take when you leave home the next day. Or petting your dog, cat, or pet. Or writing a poem about the fact that the heat death of the universe is coming and there's no escaping it. It's also important to avoid lying in bed except for sleeping. This helps condition you to make the relationship between lying in bed and sleeping very clear. In fact, something that works for me and for other people is, if I can't sleep after 20 minutes, I get up, leave the bed, and go read a book in a dark environment until sleep comes again. If possible, close the curtains to make your room as dark as possible, and also close windows and doors to make the environment quiet. And as you get better at falling asleep, it's also important to keep your wake-up time consistent between weekdays and weekends. Waking up at 6 AM for work on weekdays and sleeping until noon on weekends makes it much harder to organize and maintain a sleep routine. And most importantly, understand that every human being is different, and some things that work for one person may not work for you. It's important for you to experiment and test what works and what doesn't. And it's equally important for you to pay attention to yourself and, if insomnia persists or continues to appear, even if you sleep the adequate hours but remain tired, seek professional medical help. Sleeping is one of the best things you can do for your health, both in the short and long term. And I find it very sad that society currently seems to glorify lack of sleep. There's no shortage of examples of people bragging about pulling all-nighters working or studying, as if that were proof that they are more dedicated than others. Dedication has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of sleep you miss. Dedication has to do with what you do while you are awake. And I would love to know the tactics you use to sleep better or more easily. Write to us in the comments. Perhaps your experience will help someone. Thank you very much and see you next time.