Proper Sleep: Critical to Your Mental Health Part 2

How did your sleep go last night?

The question delves into the core of assessing the quality of your sleep. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to shift your focus away from the number of hours you slept and instead learn to evaluate the excellence of your rest. By exploring various aspects of sleep quality, you’ll find a solid foundation to tackle any sleep-related issues, be it at bedtime, during the night, in the early morning, or throughout the day.

Understood? Sleep quality is essential!

Here’s the catch—you can’t directly measure your own sleep quality. There are no reliable, data-driven, do-it-yourself devices that can analyze the brain waves (EEG waves) inside your head while you sleep. Although such technology is on the horizon, for now, subjective perceptions can guide you in assessing your sleep quality and compensate for the lack of direct data.

To begin, sleep quality is based on the physiological patterns of EEG brain waves, making sleep a physical phenomenon that affects both the mind and body. Regardless of what aspect of your sleep you wish to measure, it’s crucial to consider its connection to brain waves.

A prime example: If you feel tired or sleepy during the day, it’s highly likely that something is disrupting your sleep. A healthy sleeper rarely experiences such tiredness or sleepiness. In most cases, physical disruptions to your brain waves during sleep generate these feelings.