When sleep becomes the secret weapon for success, are you one step closer to success?

The recently popular "Frog Princess" Gu Ailing conquered her opponent with a difficult move that she had never completed before, winning a precious gold medal for China and becoming the focus of everyone's attention. When Gu Ailing talked about the secret of her success, she said that one of her secret weapons was "sleeping ten hours a night."

Sleeping, something we have to do every day, can actually become the secret weapon for success. This shows how much impact a sufficient amount of sleep has on people! So how long is the right amount of sleep? In fact, this depends on age. Don't blindly refer to Gu Ailing, who is younger than most netizens.

Today I want to talk to you about sleeping issues.

01. How long should a person sleep?

Let me first tell you, how long is the appropriate amount of sleep for a normal person?

In fact, there have been many studies in this regard, a typical example being the research conclusions of the National Sleep Foundation of the United States.

It can be seen that there are obvious differences in the amount of sleep for different age groups. Children spend most of their time sleeping, while the elderly sleep much less.

What about Gu Ailing? She was born on September 3, 2003, and is not yet 19 years old.

That is to say, her main past experience was between the ages of 0 and 18.

This is in line with the sleep recommendations of sleep organizations for this age group. After all, at the age of 17, the recommended sleep time is 8-10 hours.

So, all you adults who like to sleep in, don't refer to Gu Ailing, she is still a baby who has just grown up. You don't need that much sleep, you are just too lazy to get up.

However, for the majority of young people, many of them actually do not receive enough sleep. I have to say that this is a problem of education. Because in many places today, students are under great pressure, and many of them exchange time for efficiency. Many high school students may not sleep for less than 8 hours a day, which is really difficult for students.

02. What is correct sleep?

Of course, sleep is not just about getting enough sleep, but also about getting it at the right time.

1. Rhythm disorder can cause metabolic disorders and cause diseases. 2. Rhythm is not only affected by sunlight, but also by other factors, so it cannot be compared with time zone adjustment.
3. Rhythm affects many genes, so it is not easy to maintain long-term rhythm.

These achievements together contributed to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Circadian Rhythms.

(Picture from the Internet)

Long-term damage to circadian rhythm can cause metabolic disorders, thereby increasing the incidence of many diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and even increasing the probability of sudden cardiac death.

Here is a picture. The vertical axis is the sugar level, the horizontal axis is time, the black line is the baseline, and the red line is the rhythm disruption.

The circadian rhythm that humans have evolved for so many years cannot be easily disrupted. The rhythm affects many genes, so it is not easy to maintain a long-term rhythm.

The research I will mention below tells you that circadian rhythm involves a lot of genes.

Content is for reference only:

Let me give you an example of an article. This is a study by PNAS on circadian genes in mammals.

This is the study of rhythmic gene expression in different tissues.

This is a schematic diagram of these genes. Of course, some drugs can also cause changes in rhythm.

It can be seen that it is difficult to find a single factor to control the rhythm, so once the rhythm is disrupted, the impact will be very large.

03. The significance of sleep

In fact, there have been many studies on the significance of sleep.

One of the important views is that it is a rest for the brain. And there are also studies that have confirmed that sleep is very meaningful for cleaning up metabolic waste in the brain.

For example, researchers studied mice and found that there is a fluid called cerebrospinal fluid in the brain that protects the brain, removes metabolic waste, and verifies reactions. During sleep, the flow channels of cerebrospinal fluid expand by 60%, allowing the cerebrospinal fluid to better remove metabolic waste from the brain and promote brain recovery [3]. This removal process itself also improves immunity [1].

It can be seen that sleep is very important and you can't do without it. No matter what stage of life you are in, try to ensure enough sleep.

【1】Xie, L., et al. “Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain.” Science, vol. 342, no. 6156, 2013, pp. 373–377.,