Understand that being tired helps us fall asleep faster but why does it increase our sleep quality?
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I’m not entirely sure if this is a perfect comparison, but it’s like charging a phone from 0 to 100% instead of charging it from 75 to 100%. When a phone completely shuts down, it also goes through a reboot. After the phone turns back on and reaches 100% charge, it works much better because it has reloaded all its settings. The same goes for humans. If someone’s mind is preoccupied (with work, grand ideas, movies they’ve watched), their brain remains active and inhibits deeper relaxation. When a person is completely exhausted, they, like a phone, perform a “hard reset,” and in such cases, sleep quality improves because the person sleeps in a more balanced state with reduced mental activity. Our brain is an amazing device, but it also needs to “reboot” and rest
Sleep is when the body undoes the the processes which lead to exhaustion. As neurotransmitters are replenished and neuro-physiological byproducts are washed away and reprocessed, neurological capacity is restored and your brain becomes ready to exert itself again, becoming more active.
However, much of your urge to sleep (which is distinct from actual measure of exhaustion) also depends on your circadian rhythm, your body’s cyclical sense of day and night.
So when you go to bed totally exhausted after a crazy active day, your physiology takes all night to recover. Your brain only becomes ready to go again just before you wake up. But this is fine because your circadian rhythm has begun to tell your renewed body “It’s time to get up, lazy bones.”
Meanwhile, when evening comes after a relatively easy day, your circadian rhythm still dutifully leads you to bed. But after only a few hours, your brain has restored iteself and becomes active again.
This activity wakes you up somewhat. But when you become a little more conscious, your circadian rhythm remains in “stay in bed and sleep” mode. So you toss and turn, your brain bouncing between “I’m ready. Let’s go!” and “Fuck off. It’s 3 a.m..”
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Look up talks by Matt Walker. Your answer is when you miss sleep adonisine builds up. It’s a chemical biproduct released by energy use in our cells that builds up in the brain – it’s the piper and it will get you.
There’s no proper consensus on the stages of sleep so lets simplify it down to just three. Deep, REM and other.
Now picture a restaurant that serves Pasta (deep sleep) from 8-12 and Pizza (REM) from 12-6 and you love both.
You don’t often get there early enough but today you worked extra hard and got there with plenty of time. So you are extra hungry (aka tired) but you get to enjoy the Pasta way more before the Pizza comes.
If you get there after 12; you only get Pizza. So you still get full but you’re sort of unsatisfied.
Breadsticks (other sleep) are easy to come by all night but low on proper nutrients.
*I first used sushi, ramen miso for the analogy but decided on Italian. Appys for deep sleep doesnt work because they should both be treated as equal but different.
I work 3rd shift and no matter how much sleep I get during the day, I’m *always* tired when I’m at work at night.
If you are physically exhausted it often isn’t better, in fact it’s much worse. I’ve run ultra marathons and the night’s sleep after is terrible.
For me it isn’t. I’m an avid cyclist and have a Garmin Forerunner 955. There is a feature where it displays your remaining stamina based on some metrics. I literally did a ride until it reached 0% and felt it the next 2 days. It wasn’t that I could not have gone a few more km, but I was simply groggy for those 2 days.
But I slept like shit. What happens is that I can sleep really well for a short time after I end the ride and that is wonderful. But at night? Not at all. It feels like I’m too exhausted to fall asleep. It feels as strange as it sounds.
As with many things related to the brain there no one simple answer. If we talk about the hypothalamus, an area of the brain that controls and regulates many things related to emotion, there are neurons within this region which are excited when you’re asleep, which can help control when you should be asleep. These are regulated by hormones, most famous being melatonin. The exact mechanism is unknown.
It’s harder for me to sleep sometimes when I’m too exhausted, usually from staying up too late.
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