Sleep Revolution

Since the beginning of time, our biological clocks have been dictated by Earth’s natural cycles of light and dark. In recent decades, in an effort to become a constantly productive society, modern humanity has been experimenting with ever shorter nights and longer days. This unbalanced lifestyle, combined with our newfound love of morning-to-night screen staring, is taking a heavy biological toll on us.

In the process of designing experiences and sleepwear for wellbeing, House of Gharats has become deeply interested in the benefits of sleep for the mind, body and soul. Matthew Walker, a world-renowned expert on sleep and neuroscience, has helped us dive deeper into the science of how and why we sleep. One of the recurring messages in his book, Why We Sleep, is: the shorter you sleep, the shorter you live.

House of Gharats is focused on understanding the different functions of the mind and body, and how sleep benefits both of them. The mind operates our mental processes, thoughts and consciousness, whereas our body physically reacts to messages from our brain. Sleep plays an important role in building the connection between these two parts of us.

Dream On

Can dreams be a form of therapy? Walker, in his research on REM-sleep, uncovers the mysteries of our dreams and their importance for our mental health. In the process of dreaming, we hallucinate, become delusional, disorientated and suffer from amnesia. However, this bizarre experience offers relief from stress, anxiety and depression. By changing the chemical balance of our brain overnight, dreams help us work through the difficult, emotionally traumatic episodes we experience during the day.

Concentrations of a stress-related chemical, noradrenaline, are completely shut off in the brain when we dream. This is the only time in the day when our brain is not in contact with this anxiety-triggering molecule, offering our brains a relaxing, safe space at night and emotional healing when we wake up the next morning. Walker even suggests offering sleep as a medicine for alleviating the effects of mental illnesses such as PTSD and depression.

The Creative Algorithms of Our Sleeping Brain

The phrase “Let’s sleep on it” comes from the known effects of a restful night and the fresh perspectives it can bring to any problem. As well as improving our memory and mental processes, sleep inspires creative thinking and problem solving. When the brain is tired and sleep-deprived, it cannot organise thoughts and ideas in a logical way, preventing us from performing well, making good decisions and approaching issues in a creative way.

The organisational algorithm of our brain is completely different when we sleep, providing us with associations which transform our creative-thinking process. The sleeping brain abandons common-sense connections and instead seeks out the most distant, non-obvious links between memories and sets of information. All of this is free to be explored with endless combined possibilities, providing a creative playground for our brain at night. How powerful is it to know that we can find the answers to our problems overnight? Just sleep on it.

Through this process, the brain is able to create abstract, overarching knowledge and superordinate concepts out of individual sets of information. Instead of simply learning and retaining knowledge, our sleeping brain is able to comprehend information with a profound wisdom.

Sleep on it

So many myths circulate about how to manage the effects of sleep loss. For example, making up for lost sleep with naps, binge sleeping on the weekend, or opting for the popular misconception that “I can survive on less than 8 hours sleep”. These solutions do not equate to a regular, healthy sleeping cycle. With a lack of sleep, our mental health, memory, productivity and ability to think creatively deteriorates, decreasing our wellbeing and leading to premature death. House of Gharats is supporting a societal, professional and cultural appreciation of sleep and wishes to rethink the stereotype of laziness surrounding it, so that we can be fully present and awake during the day.

A sleep revolution is brewing in industrialised nations. Societies have begun to recognise sleep as an essential pillar of our health and wellness, both mentally and physically. This has caused the economy of sleep to grow rapidly. A report published by McKinsey details how high-end sleep products, such as moisture wicking bed-linens, tracking devices and pyjamas, are in high demand.

In the process of designing experiences and sleepwear for wellbeing, House of Gharats has become deeply interested in the benefits of sleep for the mind, body and soul. “After thirty years of intensive research, we can now answer many of the questions posed earlier. The recycle rate of a human being is around sixteen hours. After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours. Three full nights of recovery sleep (i.e., more nights than a weekend) are insufficient to restore performance back to normal levels after a week of short sleeping. Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived.” ― Matthew Walker

Sleep: A Physically Regenerative Deep Resting State

A mantra which permeates Walker’s book is: unhealthy sleep, unhealthy heart. His research shows that the impact of sleep loss on our heart is colossal as it is directly related to our blood. Just one night of reduced sleep, even by one or two hours, can significantly speed up our heart rate and increase blood pressure. This has a domino effect on the rest of the body as our heart is intrinsically connected to our immune system, making it harder for us to fight off disease and illness.

A lack of sleep also throws off our hormonal balance, making us hungrier and more likely to snack on unhealthy foods. This is one of the reasons why sleep deprivation is causally linked to health issues such as obesity and diabetes. Starting with the brain, sleep loss has a negative, domino effect on the rest of our bodily functions and destroys our physical health.

Practice, followed by a night of sleep, makes perfect brain and body

Our motor-skill memory helps the body develop muscular coordination over time and operates the function of our legs, fingers, arms and speech. Activities such as playing sports, practicing music and speaking languages develop a routine which resides in the brain. When sleep is deprived, our brain cannot adequately communicate the routine of these actions with the body and we lose the ability to physically perform. 

In one of Walker’s studies, he found that an eight-hour sleep improved the speed of physical activities by 20% and their accuracy by 35%. This shows that our brain, when asleep, can improve skill memories and help automate routine movements, making them second-nature. Practice, followed by a night of sleep, makes perfect. 

Sleep: an overnight skin repair service 

As well as being an essential tool for our health and physical wellbeing, sleep is an extremely underrated and powerful skincare remedy. 

Sleep activates an overnight repair service for our skin, helping us wake up looking bright and glowy. According to Patricia Wexler, MD, an acclaimed dermatologist in New York, our skin creates new collagen when we sleep, which promotes more youthful, plumper skin. Acting as an overnight body cleanse, sleep repairs cells and DNA damage by replacing aging cells with new ones. It gives our skin relief from the harsh realities it experiences in the day, such as acne outbreaks, rashes, infections, dark under-eye circles and swelling, helping our skin become more radiant, toned and healthy when we awaken. 

Sleep: A Free and Accessible Physical Health Repair

Sleep is a free and accessible physical health aid. It should be valued just as much as the doctors that treat us, the physiotherapist we visit or the expensive moisturiser we buy. It eases the movements and excursions of our day-to-day life and should be part of our daily self-care regime. House of Gharats is supporting a societal, professional and cultural appreciation of sleep and wishes to rethink the stereotype of laziness surrounding it, so that we can be fully present and awake during the day.

The mind is divided into a number of layers, including the conscious, subconscious and unconscious states. While meditation is critical for mastering the subconscious mind, the dreaming sleep state is the best, and perhaps the only, way of accessing the benefits from the deepest mind layer — the unconscious mind. Throughout the different stages of wakefulness described by Chopra, we can become more self-aware and spiritual. 

Cleaning The Mind

Despite the mysterious nature of sleep, evolution dictates that it is essential for the vast majority of living beings. Nature has programmed sleep into our genes and behaviour to provide a home for important psychological processes. Much like urination or defecation for the body, Chopra believes that sleep is evolution’s way of cleaning out our mind. When asleep, our mind enters a safe space to rehearse past experiences and clear our mind of bad moods, stress and accumulated toxic energy. Sleep is part of our natural cleansing process, helping our mind, body and soul in a holistic way.

In order to uncover sleep’s mysteries, Chopra introduces us to the idea of wakefulness. Wakefulness is a spectrum that our mind moves through during the day and suggests that the state of being asleep is not the complete opposite of being awake. Our brain remains active in both states, however, our consciousness is reduced or absent when asleep. This means that we lose control over some parts of our bodies while our minds are able to run free and access different parts of the brain.

Sleep also improves our relationships with others. After a night of quality sleep, we are able to communicate, reason and use language correctly which helps us build meaningful connections with others. 

Spiritual Well Being

Chopra defines spiritual well being as an awareness of our soul, self and fundamental being. In many cultures, dreams represent messages from transcendent, higher powers and are considered tools which can help us connect with this kind of spirituality. In a three part process, Chopra guides us through our stages of awareness and wakefulness throughout the day. 

The first and most basic stage of our self awareness is called our “waking state”. This is considered our least intelligent and spiritually-aware state, consisting of our daily life, habitual physical activity and relationships with others. We enter into our second stage of wakefulness during “light sleep”, where our perception of reality becomes ambiguous, paradoxical and ephemeral. We experience flashes of images, thoughts and lack logic, while simultaneously gaining access to a new, powerful kind of creativity and prophecy. Our dreams equip us with the ability to practice precognition and access memories of previous lives.

The third and final stage in our path towards spiritual wellbeing and self-awareness is “deep-sleep”. Deep-sleep is the most intelligent stage of wakefulness, where we become non-local to our bodies and access the fundamental reality of the self. Travelling through different stages of wakefulness means that we can access different versions of our self, our memories and have different understandings of the world. It creates a space for personal enlightenment and allows us to enhance our spiritual and self awareness.