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Understanding What Happens When You Sleep:

Sleep accounts for one-quarter to one-third of the human lifespan. But what exactly happens when you sleep?

Before the 1950s, most people believed sleep was a passive activity during which the body and brain were dormant. “But it turns out that sleep is a period during which the brain is engaged in a number of activities necessary to life—which are closely linked to quality of life,” says Johns Hopkins sleep expert and neurologist Mark Wu, M.D., Ph.D. Researchers like Wu are spending many of their waking hours trying to learn more about these processes and how they affect mental and physical health. Here is a glimpse into the powerful (often surprising) findings of sleep researchers—and what they’re still trying to discover about the science of sleep.

All Sleep Is Not the Same

Throughout your sleep, your brain cycles repeatedly through two different types of sleep: REM (rapid-eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep.

The first part of the cycle is non-REM sleep, which is composed of four stages. The first stage occurs between being awake and falling asleep. The second is light sleep when heart rate and breathing are regulated and body temperature drops. The third and fourth stages are deep sleep. Though REM sleep was previously believed to be the most important sleep phase for learning and memory, newer data suggests that non-REM sleep is more important for these tasks and is also the more restful and restorative phase of sleep.

As you cycle into REM sleep, the eyes move rapidly behind closed lids, and brain waves are similar to those during wakefulness. Breath rate increases, and the body becomes temporarily paralyzed as we dream.

The cycle then repeats itself, but with each cycle, you spend less time in the deeper stages three and four of sleep and more time in REM sleep. On a typical night, you’ll cycle through four or five times.

Your Body’s Built-In Sleep Controls

According to Wu, there are two main processes that regulate sleep: circadian rhythms and sleep drive.

Circadian rhythms are controlled by a biological clock located in the brain. One key function of this clock is responding to light cues. It ramps up the production of the hormone melatonin at night and switches off when it senses light. People with total blindness often have trouble sleeping because they are unable to detect and respond to these light cues.

Sleep drive also plays a key role: Your body craves sleep, much like it hungers for food. Throughout the day, your desire for sleep builds, and when it reaches a certain point, you need to sleep. A major difference between sleep and hunger: Your body can’t force you to eat when you’re hungry, but when you’re tired, it can put you to sleep, even if you’re in a meeting or behind the wheel of a car. When you’re exhausted, your body is even able to engage in microsleep episodes of one or two seconds while your eyes are open. Napping more than 30 minutes later in the day can throw off your night’s sleep by decreasing your body’s sleep drive.

Why You Need Sleep

If you have ever felt foggy after a poor night’s sleep, it won’t surprise you that sleep significantly impacts brain function. First, a healthy amount of sleep is vital for “brain plasticity,” or the brain’s ability to adapt to input. If we sleep too little, we become unable to process what we’ve learned during the day, and we have more trouble remembering it in the future. Researchers also believe that sleep may promote the removal of waste products from brain cells—something that seems to occur less efficiently when the brain is awake.

Sleep is vital to the rest of the body, too. When people don’t get enough sleep, their health risks rise. Symptoms of depression, seizures, high blood pressure and migraines worsen. Immunity is compromised, increasing the likelihood of illness and infection. Sleep also plays a role in metabolism: Even one night of missed sleep can create a prediabetic state in an otherwise healthy person.“There are many important connections between health and sleep,” says Wu.

7 Japanese Concepts for Life Transformation:

1. Ikigai aka reason for being

The term is derived from two words: ikigai, which means “life,” and aka (originally “kai”), which refers to “value” or “worth.”

According to the book Ikigai, “It’s the happiness of always being busy”.

The philosophy was originally about finding your true happiness. In a modern interpretation, it serves as a tool to find your dream career. The people of Okinawa Island believe it’s their reason to get up every morning.

You can use it as a guiding force that tells you what you’re meant to do by aligning your passion with what the world needs today.

Every person has an ikigai. You can find it by aligning your passion, strengths, and values with the needs of the hour.

Ask yourself these 4 questions to find your Ikigai Aka:

1. What do you love doing?

2. What you’re good at?

3. What you can be paid for?

4. What does the world need?

Mark Winn presents these questions through a Venn diagram that helps find that “sweet spot” where your passion, vocation, profession, and mission intersect. That very spot represents your Ikigai.

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Lifeis worth reading if you want to explore this philosophy in depth. If you’re looking for a purpose in life, this concept can be an eye-opener.

2. Wabi-sabi

Do you often struggle to take the next step or start something new because your basic tendency is to chase perfection? Does fear of failure stop you from executing your plans? If you’re nodding by now, this Japanese concept of beauty, aka wabi-sabi, is for you to live by.

Wabi-Sabi is about reminding ourselves that everything in this life is temporary, so there’s no sense in chasing perfection. Instead, we must try to find the beauty in simplicity and make the most of the present moment, for that’s all we’ve got.

Wabi-sabi is an intrinsic aspect of traditional Japanese aesthetics focused on simplicity and rustic beauty. It’s applied in their cultural ceremonies, architecture, and art. It also shares a connection with Zen Buddhism, which focuses on mindfulness.

Today, everyone is obsessed with a perfect lifestyle, body shape, house, partner, and whatnot. This obsession comes from external pressures, social media, and the fear of missing out.It takes a toll on people’s mental health and social lives and keeps them from living fully.

Practise Wabi-sabi to embrace life as it is in the best possible way.

Focus on the present moment by embracing all aspects of your life journey
Shift your focus from perfection to excellence that comes by taking the first step
Learn to make the most of what you already have instead of begrudging
Embrace all the ups & downs and wins & losses, for they only make everyone’s journey unique and beautiful
Make resilience your superpower by extracting learning from a mistake.

3. Shinrin-yoku: Forest bathing

The simple act of spending time in nature is known as shinrin-yoku. It’s the most relevant Japanese concept for improving life by re-establishing our lost connection with nature. According to an EPA-sponsored 2001 study, the average American spends 83% of their time indoors and 6% in a closed vehicle.

Leading this intense indoor lifestyle has made humans less mindful of sustainable practices that protect the environment. We rarely have time to unplug from technology and the hustle of life. Here, Shinrin-yoku comes into the picture as a free and accessible therapeutic antidote.

In his recent study, Dr Qing Li also reported the tangible health benefits of forest bathing. It improves sleep quality, elevates mood, enhances focus, reduces blood pressure and stress levels, etc.

This also helps you do a digital detox, which we all need to experience.

Shinrin-yoku is one of the incredible Japanese concepts that encourages mindfully spending time in nature by actively involving all five senses.

It’s all about absorbing the serenity of nature that promotes mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.

Find an ideal spot surrounded by trees, water, and mountains, ideally, a forest. But if you’re in a city, a nearby park will also do
Carry out only the essentials and no digital devices
Spend time walking and soaking in the natural beauty around
Go slow and feel the breeze against your skin, listen to the birds chirping, dry leaves crushing under your feet
Observe tiny details like the sunlight entering through the canopy, patterns of leaves, climbers, etc.
Smell the aroma of the moist soil and blooming flowers
If you’re with a guide, consult them before touching a plant or tasting fruits or edible leaves.

4. Ma: The negative space

It’s a philosophical Japanese concept that signifies physical space or gap between the beginning and end. Ma has been a part of Japanese art, design, and architecture in the minimalist Tatami homes in Japan.

The idea behind this concept goes beyond minimalism or decluttering, for Ma also represents a pause in time or emptiness in space. It’s about allowing yourself to appreciate the stillness that our fast-moving generation is forgetting.

We’re always running from task to task, consuming information, and filling the remaining time with social media or other digital distractions. We all must replace this urgency to always be busy by appreciating the stillness of the present moment.

The principle of Ma is also a way of socializing for the Japanese. The deliberate long pause while bowing before someone to convey respect and true feelings, or they have a conversation or make a thoughtful decision that isn’t a conclusion of rushed thoughts.

Practising Ma allows you to contemplate thoughts in silence and is considered sophisticated in Japanese culture. It enhances your intellectual and intuitive sense. This way, Ma is also a physical manifestation of spirituality.

So, the next time you’re alone and free, appreciate that moment rather than filling it with random social media scrolling
Hold hugs for a bit longer, and have deliberate eye contact while shaking hands
Take time before jumping to conclusions
Listen actively and calmly to respond and have a meaningful conversation

5. Kaizen: Japanese concept of business

The word root of Kaizen consists of two Japanese terms: ‘kai’ means ‘change’ and ‘zen’ means ‘good’. It’s a progressive approach of taking smaller, consistent steps that compound over time to bring about substantial change or improvement.

In the present day and age, Kaizen is an undervalued concept because of its steady and slow nature. It’s a subtle yet employee-friendly way to bring improvement within an organization. This philosophy serves as the basis for thriving Japanese businesses like Toyota.

It allows everyone in the team to adapt to a changed environment without making radical transformations. Kaizen empowers everyone to identify gaps or inefficiencies in the existing systems.

The core belief behind Kaizen is that everything has a scope for improvement, and nothing is the status quo.

This helps bring innovative solutions aimed at improving ongoing processes and systems, whether in productivity, effectiveness, or safety standards.

A few more benefits of this Japanese business philosophy are :

active team contribution,
improved employee and customer satisfaction,
enhanced retention,
better problem-solving approach
lesser errors, and reduced waste of time, resources, and effort.

All in all, everything a business needs not only to survive but to thrive.

Here are a few practical steps for you to practise Kaizen within your organization:

Follow the basic PDCA model - Plan, Do, Check, and Act.

Involve all the team members in identifying gaps, collecting information, and brainstorming sessions,
Point out existing problems, challenges, and opportunities,
Encourage everyone to drop in suggestions, ideas, creative strategies, and solutions,
Pick the most innovative and promising solutions,
Test the solution by implementing it for the testing period, like in pilot programs,
Analyze the progress regularly to determine the success rate of the chosen solution,
If desired results manifest within the trial period, approve the solution at the organizational level. Use the same approach for any other problem or update. Otherwise, repeat the cycle of PDCA.

The goal of Kaizen is not to reach perfectionism but to find solutions, adapt to changes, enhance team spirit, and improve continuously by not settling just for the sake of the status quo.

6. Shikata Ga Nai

Shikata Ga Nai, or Shō (ga) nai, is the Japanese concept of letting go of things you can’t control. It simply refers to “it can’t be helped,” which encourages people to accept things or situations as they are.

There are many instances in life where unexpected incidents occur, like disasters, economic crises, or the death of a loved one. We neither prepare ourselves for such events nor they’re a part of our plan. But such unfortunate events happen, and it’s crucial to accept and get over them to move on in life.

This is possible when you make internal peace with what has happened and persevere even in adversity.

Stop fighting or denying the situation that you’re struggling to make peace with,
Give it some serious thought and see if you can do anything to change it,
If you know there’s nothing that you can do about it, shift your focus to finding ways that will help you adapt to your situation,
Don’t compare your life with other people and be in the present moment,
Self-reflect on the situation to understand what went wrong or how you can face similar challenges further in life with greater strength,
Have patience and trust the process and the fact that you’re a resilient being.

7. Kintsugi: The Japanese concept of broken things

The literal meaning of “Kintsugi” is ‘join with gold’.It’s the art of repairing broken objects, often ceramic pottery or glass, using gold lacquer to mend the cracks and give them an aesthetic appeal.

Urushi is the traditional lacquer used by the Japanese to glue broken pieces while practising Kintsugi. Then, the object with the lacquer is set aside to dry and further sanded smoothly. In the end, gold, silver, platinum, or copper finishing powder is sprinkled over the lacquer to give it a refurbished look.

The deep philosophy behind Kintsugi is all about

Embracing imperfection - it highlights the cracks not as flaws but as something that draws people’s attention
Minimizing waste - rather than discarding the broken object, it’s repaired to promote sustainable use of resources and demote buying unnecessary new products
Allowing ourselves to make mistakes, for they only make our journeys uniquely interesting.

If you’re going through a heartbreak, economic crisis, or failure, implement Kintsugi.

Remind yourself it’s not the end of the world. These are only a few battles that you might have lost, but you’ve to prepare yourself to win the war.
Pick yourself up and make these scars your gold lacquer that will shape your life better than you’ve ever imagined.

So, life might not be perfect at this moment, as you planned, but have faith that it will be beautiful in the end. You’ll come out stronger because of everything you’re going through now.

Final Words

Life is uncertain, and at times, things don’t go as planned. The important thing is to keep looking for ways to make the most of what we have. The following 7 Japanese philosophies allow everyone to do this.

1. Ikigai, aka reason for being

2. Wabi-sabi

3. Shinrin-yoku: forest bathing

4. Ma: The negative space

5. Kaizen: Japanese concept of business

6. Shikata Ga Nai

7. Kintsugi: The Japanese concept of broken things.

Practising them is easy if you’ve got the will, discipline, and determination to lead a meaningful life. These Japanese concepts will transform your life for good by offering you strength, wisdom, and courage to face adversity with grace.