The science of sleep

“Hi Paddy: over here!” my friend Balwant Sinha cried from across the room. “I’ve been dying to talk to you.”

I was touched by his greeting. I didn’t realize how much my company meant to him. There was obviously something heavy on his mind that the poor fellow needed my opinion on, some weighty problem that only I could solve.

“Really sorry,” I said, sitting down next to him. I looked deep into his eyes with empathy. “What’s troubling you?”

“How well did you sleep last night?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Forget that. What are you dying to talk to me about?”

“That’s it: your sleep, man! How well did you sleep last night?”

“Ok, I guess,” I said, “but…”

“Don’t guess!” Sinha sounded cross. “Do you know that extensive studies have highlighted that not getting proper sleep is a key issue today?”

“Yes, I’ve read something like that. But getting to something more important, why…”

“Nothing is more important,” said Sinha. “So think: did you sleep well last night?”

I threw my mind back (not literally, of course) and said, “Yes, I slept well.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently. If he had nothing better to talk about, I did, like for example, India’s meteoric rise and sudden fall in the World Cup. “I know I slept well.”

“How do you know?”

I was puzzled. “I don’t know,” I said.

“But you said you know!”

“I know,” I said. Then, realizing he may think I was changing my answer again, I clarified: “I mean, I know I said I know but I don’t know why I know, if you know what I mean. And the fact that I don’t know why is the reason I know I slept well. Because when you sleep well you don’t know anything.”

“Nonsense!” said Sinha. “It looks like you don’t know anything even when you are awake. For example, you don’t know the latest science of sleep. You don’t know that we undergo different cycles of sleep: REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep, which restores and refreshes our brains; deep sleep, which restores our muscles; and light sleep.”

“Does that restore our souls?” I asked coldly, stung by his remark about my ignorance.

“No,” he said, impervious to the sarcasm. “Light sleep is actually not beneficial. Finally there are the periods we wake up but don’t remember it.”

“What about the periods we wake up and do remember it, like when our teenage son comes back from a party at 2 am and rings the bell, having forgotten – once again – to carry the house key with him?”

“Ah, Children’s Role in Sleep Disruption! That’s a fantastic side topic on sleep that I’ll come back to. But first, did you know that we can now measure the three cycles of sleep?!” He showed me his smart phone screen. “What do you see?”

“I see you, sleeping,” I said, “with a massive alarm clock next to you. For some strange reason, you’re pushed your eye mask so that it covers your forehead instead of your eyes.”

“That’s not an eye mask,” he said. “It’s an elastic headband that carries a transmitter pod to measure my brainwaves continuously and send them to that special Zeo alarm clock!” Without waiting to see if I was excited (I wasn’t), he ran his fingers over his phone. It now showed a chart with three bars on it, the third being the tallest.

“These bars depict my nightly sleep scores in one convenient number ZQ, based on the positives (REM and deep sleep) and the negatives (sleep disruptions). I scored a whopping 75 last night, versus 42 and 46 the previous two nights, which is why I know definitively that I slept very well last night.”

Before I could react to this drivel, he continued. “I also know the exact breakdown of my sleeping performance. Last night, for example, REM contributed 23%, deep sleep a solid 38% and light sleep 25%. The rest – 14% – was disruptions. Not good but an improvement over the previous day, when it was a horrendous 26%.”

“How does all this help you, apart from making scintillating bar conversation?”

The man was sarcasm proof. “Thanks!” he said. “Very kind of you. But how does it help me? It has transformed me! I now have a clear action plan for sleep in my life. I’ve set tough but achievable goals for myself: 65% ZQ on weekdays and 85% on weekends, with at least 50% of that coming from REM and deep sleep. ”

“And what will you do with all this?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’ll track myself daily and adjust performance. For example, during the week, if I slip on Monday and Tuesday, I’ll lift my game on Wednesday and by Friday, hit my weekday goal. Likewise if I do badly on, say, the Diwali weekend due to playing cards for too long, I simply up the ante in the subsequent weekends to hit my monthly goal.”

I shook my head, wishing his headband could also measure his overall level of lunacy even as he slept.