When you’re awake, the electrical activity in your brain is varied — slow, fast, strong, faint. But when you fall asleep, your brain waves slow and synchronize. You initially enter a doze, known as Stage 1 sleep, from which you can be easily awakened. Falling asleep should take at least 5 minutes; tonight it took you 2. According to experts, that’s a sign of a problem — it means you’re overtired. “One of the major misconceptions is that it’s a good thing if you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow,” says Kathryn Lee, Ph.D., a sleep specialist and nursing professor at the University of California at San Francisco. “Actually, it means you’re a sleep-deprived person.”

Over the next hour or so, you transition into increasingly intense slumber. Next comes Stage 2. This is “baseline” sleep — over the course of the night you’ll spend half your time in this state, but not all at once. Right now you spend just 15 to 20 minutes here before entering Stages 3 and 4, known as slow-wave sleep, the deepest and most restorative kind. You’re breathing evenly and slowly, the very picture of serenity. Then everything changes. You shift into REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Your brain emits a cacophony of electrical signals — it’s as active as when you are awake. But you’re not awake, of course. REM sleep is the phase when most dreaming occurs. Your eyes dart back and forth, and the muscles in your arms and legs are paralyzed. Sleep researchers believe this inertia may have evolved to prevent us from acting out our dreams.

The time between now and your alarm — the last few hours of sleep — may be especially important: Recent research suggests that this is when your brain rehearses what you learned the previous day. And “sleeping on it” does more than help you remember new things — it may make you better at them. In a 2002 study, scientists asked people to type a sequence of numbers over and over. The volunteers got faster with practice, then plateaued. Tested later in the day, they performed no better, but the next day, after the benefit of a good night’s sleep, they sped up an additional 20 percent. Curtailed sleep eliminates those sorts of gains.

So as for that cake-decorating class you took yesterday: Right now, your brain is reviewing how to color the icing and choose the appropriate nib for the pastry bag. Thanks to tonight’s sleep, when you bake a cake for your mom’s party, you’ll fashion sugary roses more expertly than you did in class. “It will feel sort of magical to you, but your performance will have improved,” says Robert Stickgold, Ph.D., a Harvard Medical School neuroscientist who coauthored the typing study.

One 90- to 110-minute sleep cycle ends and the next begins. Each of the following cycles will contain a different proportion of light, medium, deep, and REM sleep.

Although experts don’t yet fully understand what sleep is for, they know it is crucial: Rats normally live 2 years or more, but when deprived of sleep they die within 3 weeks. If you stay awake for 24 hours straight, you will involuntarily begin undergoing regular bursts of “microsleep” — 2- to 3-second intervals in which you essentially lose consciousness. An Australian study published in the journal Nature found that people kept awake for 28 hours did as poorly on a hand-eye-coordination test as did people who were legally drunk (having a blood alcohol concentration of 1.0).

But you don’t have to pull an all-nighter to feel the effects of sleep loss. The past few nights, you’ve stayed up late — to work, pay bills, help your husband pack for a business trip. You think you do fine on 6 hours’ sleep, but you’re actually accumulating a “sleep debt.” Recent research shows that spending just a couple of hours less in bed each night for a week or two — basically your normal schedule — lowers your spirits. “Sleep deprivation has significant impacts on mood in healthy individuals,” says J. Todd Arnedt, Ph.D., a University of Michigan sleep specialist. “People get more depressed; they may get more anxious.” Sleep loss also slows your reflexes and impairs your memory, judgment, and mental acuity. In a landmark 2003 University of Pennsylvania study, people who were limited to 6 hours of sleep per night for 2 weeks did significantly worse on tests of alertness and reasoning than people who got their full 8 hours.

But get this: The subjects in the Penn study had no idea how impaired they were. They reported an initial increase in sleepiness, but as time wore on they did not complain of additional exhaustion, though their test scores continued to decline. “One of the first things that goes in our brain is our insight,” says Joyce Walsleben, Ph.D., a psychologist at New York University’s Sleep Disorders Center. “A sleepy person generally does not perceive how badly they are functioning.”

adapted from Women’s Health Magazine, by BY EMILY LABER-WARREN

Boulder, Colorado—an innovative company has taken one of life’s most unpleasant experiences (being startled awake by your alarm clock early Monday morning), and transformed it into something to actually look forward to. “The Zen Alarm Clock,” uses soothing acoustic chimes that awaken users gently and gradually, making waking up a real pleasure.  Rather than an artificial recorded sound played through a speaker, the Zen Clock features an alloy chime bar similar to a wind chime.  When the clock’s alarm is triggered, its chime produces a long-resonating, beautiful acoustic tone reminiscent of a temple gong.  Then, as the ring tone gradually fades away, the clock remains silent until it automatically strikes again three minutes later.  The frequency of the chime strikes gradually increase over ten-minutes, eventually striking every five seconds, so they are guaranteed to wake up even the heaviest sleeper.  This gentle, ten-minute “progressive awakening” leaves users feeling less groggy, and even helps with dream recall.

What makes this gentle awakening experience so exquisite is the sound of the natural acoustic chime, which has been tuned to produce the same tones as the tuning forks used by musical therapists. According to the product’s inventor, Steve McIntosh, “once you experience this way of being gradually awakened with beautiful acoustic tones, no other alarm clock will ever do.”

The luxurious awakening provided by the Zen Alarm Clock is part of the growing preference for things natural—natural foods, natural fibers, and now, natural acoustic sounds.  Like organic tomatoes in your salad, the organic sounds of the Zen Alarm Clock’s sweet acoustic chimes are truly a gourmet experience.

Zen Alarm Clocks, made by Now & Zen, Inc., come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  The company markets its products internationally through third-party retail stores and catalogs, and also sells directly to consumers through its website and Boulder headquarters store. The company’s philosophy is expressed by its tag line: ‘quality of thought, stillness of being.’ Now & Zen’s complete line of natural lifestyle products can be seen at: www.now-zen.com, or by calling the company to request a catalog.

Now & Zen – The Alarm Clock Store with Acoustic Chimes

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com

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