Chemistry of sleep

During beginning of sleep , your body produces serotonin, which is released into the bloodstream. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter commonly associated with well-being and happiness, calming the body. So at bedtime there is a growing feeling of relaxation and contentment that comes over you while sleep arrives.

During the night, the chemicals dumped into your bloodstream change. If the production of serotonin were infinite, eventually it would disturb the body during the rest of the day. An average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep each night and although the exact amount varies from person to person. Your body knows when you've slept enough.

When this happens, the body produces dopamine, precisely to suppress the feeling of sleepiness and prepare you to get up. By hitting the “snooze” button and go back to sleep, your body begins to drip droplets of serotonin again, turning it into one of those glasses of cocktails, as the neurotransmitters are crazy with the conflicting influences.

The extra sleep can release chemicals that cause a good feeling, but in the end, it pushes your body to opposite directions. This chemical mixture makes you feel disoriented and makes it harder to get up.

Sleep cycles

As for the sleep cycles, the two most important are the Rapid Eye Movement (or REM) and “deep sleep”. The first allows your brain to filter the activities of the previous day, while the second offers a state of pure rest that your body needs to work properly. There are new studies indicating also that the brain performs chemical cleaning during sleep, which scientists have been calling the “glimphatic system”.

These two cycles are alternated during the night and the duration of each stage varies from person to person. But we all have more “deep sleep” in the early sleepping and more REM before we wake up naturally. This cycle is triggered by the change in the chemical balance.

Therefore, for one or two hours before you wake up, you're basically having a REM sleep. You dream a lot in this period and consolidates recent memories. Strangely , it means that your body processes most of the previous day's events just before waking up naturally. The conclusion reached is that the sooner you stop this process, the lower it will be your ability to process those experiences.

In addition, other research shows that disrupt REM sleep can disturb your mental functions during the day.

Studies of fragmented sleep suggests that the body will end up more tired when compared to the equivalent amount of uninterrupted sleep. In other words, the “snooze” is worse, and if most of the time you spend in bed is taking naps, expect damage to your memory, reaction time, attention and interpretation.