blog Archives - NIGHTINGOLD

The 6 wrong ways to place the pillow

We humans, you know, are creative people even when we go to sleep. In a previous article we told you about the different sleep positions, while here we wanted to collect 6 wrong ways to place the pillow: rather common errors but all harmful to our posture and well-being. Let’s see why

1) Pillow under the shoulders

One of the most frequent mistakes is to put the pillow under your shoulders. In this way the pillow is crushed by the (important) weight of the back and cannot adhere well to the neck and head that are instead the two parts of the body that it should support.

You put it under your back because you love reading in the bed? Of course there is nothing wrong. But then, when you lay down, it is good to recover the correct position.

2) Neck out of pillow

This is the opposite position to the previous one but incorrect in the same way. That is, a pillow that does not adhere to the shoulders but not even to the neck, because it is positioned too far back and accommodate only the head or a part of it.

Supporting the cervical spine with the pillow at night is instead a fundamental element to ensure a quality rest avoiding stiff neck and many other discomforts.

3) Pillow on the headboard

Another typical mistake is to place the pillow on the headboard of the bed by putting it almost vertically. The pillow should be placed directly on the mattress, and its ability to support you also depends on it.

In addition, a vertical pillow forces your head and neck to an oblique, completely unnatural position, causing muscle tension and consequent cervical pain.

4) Arm under the head or under the pillow

Putting an arm under the face is a great classic, not only when sleeping on your stomach. It generally comes from the need to have a stiffer support or from the desire to increase the height of the pillow, which is evidently inadequate.

In all cases it is a big mistake not only for your neck. The shoulders twist leading the spine to take a misalignment position that your body will try to compensate “in some way”, a situation certainly not optimal for your posture.

5) Pillow along the body

Are you part of those people who hug the pillow to fall asleep, placing it along the chest because they love that feeling of warm softness that comes with it?

There is nothing wrong of course but be careful: the pillow loses all its functionality turning into an accessory element, almost like a teddy bear! While the pillow, we remember, is together with the mattress a fundamental element to speep well and live our days with the right energy.

6) Double pillows

Some people tend to fold the pillow in two parts as to be thicker, perhaps to watch TV or even use a double pillow. The problem is that they then fall asleep in this position and sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with widespread malaise. Why?

The reason is that the height of the pillow is fundamental and it’s designed to align the neck with the rest of the column, especially in a tailor made pillow like our Nightingold. Double the height of the pillow by folding it in two … it’s never a good idea.

So how to position the pillow?

Regardless of the position you take, on the side or on the back, the pillow must accommodate both the neck and the head that must ideally position itself in the center, as you see in the pictures below.

When you lay down on your bed try to follow these 3 rules:

1) place the pillow horizontally without bending or deforming it;

2) position your shoulders directly on the mattress

3) check to “feel” the pillow touching your neck

Aren’t you comfortable and can’t find the right location to relax?

Then maybe you use a pillow that’s not right for you.

Properly placing the pillow is the first step to getting a good night’s sleep. The second step? Sleep on a tailor made pillow. Nightingold is the pillow created around your physicality and habits.

Discover the benefits of a personalized pillow

Do you suffer of agitated nights and can’t find the right position for your pillow?

We are happy to make our expertise available to you.

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Memory pillows can be really different

Let’s get this straight: this is not the usual article about the characteristics of a memory pillow. On the net you will find hundreds of insights and we also have already covered the topic here.

In this article we want to explain why some memory pillows cost 30 euros and others 300 euros, why some are breathable and others are not, some soft and others rigid, and why we had the need to call our memory differently: Memory Gold.

Viscosity and elasticity

To understand the differences between a memory foam pillow and ours made of Memory Gold, we have to make a small technical digression, talking about viscoelasticity. Each memory pillow plays on the balance between two characteristics: viscosity and elasticity.

> Viscosity is the resistance that the material has when pressure is exerted (of the head in the case of pillows);

> Elasticity is the ability of that material to return to its initial position after being deformed.

As in a scale, if the balance is shifted towards viscosity, the pillow will be very hard and will find it difficult to get back into initial position, while if it is too elastic it will quickly “bounce” at the expense of comfort.

All companies that design memory foam pillows try to find the perfect balance between viscosity and elasticity. This influence the way in which they choose materials and some other parameters with different mixes of ingredients. However, the result is not always the same..

How has your memory been processed?

To achieve the balance between viscosity and elasticity there are several ways: some more expensive, others cheaper. For obvious reasons, many companies choose the cheapest route by purchasing lower quality materials (polymers with a small cell size) and sometimes even shortening process times. Choices that result in a imbalance on viscosity.

Maybe when you touch it in the store, the pillow can look nice and compact, but in a daily use you would realize that it struggles to adapt to the different positions you take at night, giving you the feeling that you do not have the right support. And that’s not the only downside.

It’s a question of breathability.

In addition to excessive viscosity, a memory foam pillow produced from poor materials has another problem, perhaps even more serious: it is not breathable.

This is because a small cell size penalizes air circulation by generating that annoying feeling of excessive heat under the face. In addition, the heat generated and the scarcity of oxygen are conditions that favor bacterial proliferation. A great minus for those suffering from allergies, rhinitis, dermatitis and the many who wake up in the morning with itching in the eyes.

A cheap memory foam pillow is therefore woody, hotter, less elastic and less breathable than a high-quality memory foam pillow. That’s why we decided to call our pillows Memory Gold.

Memory Gold pillows.

At Nightingold, we ensure the maximum quality of the product by working on the polymer construction. We are not the only ones in the world, but we are definitely among the few.

We do this because we want our pillow to have the perfect balance between viscosity and elasticity, between comfort and support, between lightness and breathability. Our formula and our mix of materials is obviously a secret but the effects are obvious.

You can notice it from the slow, controlled movement that each Memory Gold pillow has when it comes back into initial position, from the fact that it accompany and support your neck and head lightly throughout the night, or when you wake up in the morning and no longer have that annoying itching in your eyes.

Plus they’re tailor-made… but that’s yet another story.

Buy a Nightingold pillow

For any further information don’t hesitate to contact us, click our Nightingale

We are happy to put at your disposal our knowledge.

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Do you feel irritable and impatient? It’s all about how you sleep!

You’ve probably already tried on your skin how lack of sleep causes irritability. After a sleepless or very disturbed night, you often happen not only to feel fatigued and not very energetic, but definitely more irritable and vulnerable to stress.

Many scientific researches have verified the existence of a direct correlation between irritability and lack of sleep.

How many times have you been able to quickly lose patience for a colleague’s request, to quarrel with your partner without even knowing why or, even worse, to react disproportionately with your children, who were only looking for spending time with you?

Lack of sleep and irritability

Many studies have shown that lack of sleep has a significant impact on our mood, even when it comes to partial deprivation, which we sometimes think cannot have significant consequences.

“Even small night fluctuations in sleep duration can affect how people respond to events in their daily lives,” says psychologist Nancy Sin of the University of British Columbia.

“We found that when people sleep less than usual, they don’t have the same boost in positive emotions from their positive events,” Sin says. Sleeping longer, on the other hand, makes positive events look even better and protects against the negative effects of daily stress.

Some scientific researches

In this regard, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania carried out a very interesting study. Adult behaviors were studied after only 1 week of reduction of their rest to 5 hours a night.

A relatively short period, and a sleep deprivation that might seem with no impacts. How many times have you ever slept five hours? There are, even, those who consider 5-6 hours as the standard time of a good daily rest.

But that’s not what the study showed. The results are astonishing

An interesting study on sleep and irritability

To test the impact of sleep deprivation on behaviors, the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study of 16 adults, everyone in perfect health conditions.

For 7 consecutive days the subjects were induced to a sleep deprivation of 33%, causing them to sleep about 5 hours/night.

The experiment involved a timely analysis of the state of fatigue and the behaviors of the subjects who, 3 times a day, were monitored through scientific tests.

The monitoring provided an evaluation on different parameters: level of psychomotor surveillance, storage capacity and presence of cognitive-emotional disorders.

Results

The test results are impressive. In just 1 week of reduction of rest, all subjects showed a worsening of their ability to carry out their normal daily activities.

Fatigue, sense of confusion, tension and a general behavior disorder is what most of the people reported.

There has also been an increase in memory gaps.

And the most important thing, is that such effects appeared already after only 2 days of reduction of sleep hours

Recovery

By the time the subjects returned to sleep about 7.5 hours a night, the negative effects completely disappeared.

The alarming news is that it took from 2 to 3 days to recover the deprivation accumulated in only 1 week. Furthermore, as the days of deprivation have increased, it has proved to be increasingly difficult to make a full recovery.

What about you? Do you suffer from irritability?

How long have you not been sleeping more than 5-6 hours a night? You’ve probably figured out now why you feel so tired and cranky. It is also possible that the days when you seem to see “all black” are the ones where you have rested the worst.

So it’s time to do something to improve the quality of your life, how you feel, and your relationships.

What to do if your sleep is not good

There are a lot of things that affect our sleep. From pre-sleep habits, to the lights you submit to your eyes just before you fall asleep, to the foods you take over dinner. Even the colors of your bedroom walls can have an impact on how easily you fall asleep.

But what certainly has a direct influence on the quality of your sleep is the ability to completely relax when you lie on the bed and position your head on your pillow.

That should be the moment you feel that sensation of muscle relaxation, which starts from behind the neck and reaches the extremities; the tip of his hands; the tip of the toes.

If that doesn’t happen to you, it’s time to question your pillow. Have you ever thought about it?

The importance of pillow on a good sleep

Have you ever thought that, in addition to the mattress, the pillow is a fundamental element to be able to achieve that kind of deep relaxation?

Do you know that when you sleep with the appropriate pillow, you have a much less disturbed sleep thanks to the fact that the body takes a correct, muscularly “neutral” position, which can be maintained for several consecutive hours?

If your sleep is very rough, it is very likely that you are taking incorrect postures that your physique cannot sustain for several consecutive hours. And that depends on whether your pillow isn’t supporting your head as it should and you try to compensate in any way. Arms under the pillow, bent leg, crooked back, elbows under the head.

Anything to find a moment of peace … but at what cost?

The pillow that perfectly suits for you is the one that can properly support your head, aligning your neck to your column.

In fact, when this correct alignment exists, the whole column can relax and send a message of deep relaxation to the body, through the nervous system. The muscles relax, the tendons in turn can finally stop working, …. Everything finally indulges in a deep sleep

The tailor made pillow

Getting column alignment is not immediate, because it depends on a lot of factors, first of all your sleep position.

Sleeping to the side leads you to have different needs than those who sleep on their stomachs up. In addition, the physicality of each of us is different, so you can well imagine that each of us needs a different pillow.

What does it feel like to wear shoes that are too tight or one size more?

And for our neck and shoulders it’s exactly the same thing. They also need the same attention that we reserve at our feet.

Nightingold is the first company offering the tailor made pillow. Through a process of in-depth investigation of your needs and desires, we are able to create the memory foam pillow created specifically for you, different from that of any other.

Starting from high quality materials, we create tailor-made recipes that can transform the wishes and needs of the customer into his pillow.

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to start sleeping well.

Contact us to find out how we can help you finally rest as you deserve

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Food and Sleep

The quality of your rest is a fundamental element for the overall health of your body and mind. And we know how food plays a key role on it.

Sleeping well reduces the risk of developing some chronic diseases, keeps your mind healthy and strengthens your immune system. (Article: The importance of a good night’s sleep)

Nutrition and its impact on your rest

Whether it’s “energy shock” after a cup of coffee or that feeling of drowsiness after Christmas lunch, you’ll certainly have experienced directly how nutrition can affect your energy and waking state.

We perfectly know how important is “staying light” at lunch time, particularly when we have to sit in the office or face endless meetings.

Two very complex mechanisms

However, we should not underestimate that both nutrition and sleep are two very complex mechanisms having a strong influence on our organism. A complexity that increases exponentially when we relate them.

At night, our rest is characterized by the alternation of 4 different phases, what we call sleep cycles. Sleep, in fact, is a dynamic mechanism with a specific and very complex architecture, which alternates different phases and cycles that allow the body to regenerate tissues and the mind. (Article: Sleep cycles and stages: do you know how it works?)

Science has done a lot of research on how nutrition impacts each stage of sleep, and there are many results, which you’ll find out in a very short time.

The 6 foods that can help you

Researchers, nutritionists and sleep experts have conducted several studies to try to understand the impact of diet on the quality of the sleep.

If the results of this research provide very interesting ideas, they cannot be considered definitive. If there is no food that alone can change the fate of your rest, there are some foods that have beneficial properties on its quality.

It is also a scientific evidence that nutrition has a direct impact not only on the ability to sleep well and on your energy level. Food choices, in fact, play a key role in many other aspects of your life, such as, for example, cardiovascular health and blood sugar levels.

For this reason it is essential to always consult a doctor or nutritionist before making drastic changes in your diet.

Learn below about foods that can help you improve the quality of your rest, and lots more.

We’ve prepared some advice for you to improve the quality of your rest.

1. Kiwis

Kiwis are a low-calorie food rich in many nutrients. One fruit contains only 42 calories, but alone it brings about 70% of the daily requirement of vitamin C and about 25% of vitamin K.

Eating Kiwi has a beneficial effect on your digestive health, thanks to the intake of fibers it owns. It is also rich in antioxidants, Vitamin C and carotenoids, soothing elements that reduce inflammation.

The ability of kiwis to improve sleep quality has been scientifically demonstrated. They have a high level of serotonin. Serotonin is a hormone produced by our organism, which affects the mechanisms of regulating sleep cycles.

Thanks to the intake of serotonin that kiwis provide, they are considered an excellent food to eat before going to sleep. Some publications of the National Library of Medicine also link the intake of antioxidants with positive effects on the quality of rest.

Some researchers checked the change in the quality of rest in 24 adults, after consuming 2 kiwis an hour before going to sleep every night, for 4 weeks. At the end of the study, participants fell asleep faster than the previous 4 weeks. The time it took to fall asleep was almost halved (-42%).

To date, science is seeking other evidence to officially state that kiwis take direct action in improving sleep quality more generally. However, eating 1 or 2 kiwis before bedtime will help you fall asleep more quickly.

2. Oilseeds

The family of oilseeds consists in foods often considered excellent for sleep, and more. In particular we talk about nuts, almonds, pistachios and cashews.

Eating almonds regularly, for example, has been associated with a reduction in the risk of contracting some important diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and heart problems. This benefit has been linked to the beneficial mix of the elements of which they are composed: monounsaturated fats, fiber and antioxidants.

Oilseeds also contain melatonin and other minerals essential for the proper functioning of some mechanisms of our body. Magnesium, phosphorus, manganese and reblofavin (or vitamin B2) are the main ones.

And it is precisely thanks to melatonin that such foods are considered beneficial for the quality of sleep. In fact they help to adjust the internal clock of your body, preparing it for a deep sleep.

There are a lot of researches about the correlation between almonds and sleep, and much more in progress.

However, clinical studies have shown that the combination of melatonin, magnesium and zinc helps elderly people suffering from insomnia to sleep more and better.

3. Cherry juice

Cherry juice has important beneficial effects on health. First of all, it offers your body some important nutrients such as magnesium, phosphorus and potassium.

In addition, it is a source of antioxidants. The intense color that characterizes the cherry is due to some pigments called anthocyanins, which are precisely antioxidants. These pigments seem to protect against capillary fragility and against various aging processes or cellular modifications caused by oxygen.

Cherry is also rich in flavonols, considered among the most powerful antioxidants for their molecular structure.

Many scientific studies have correlated this food with important benefits on rest, demonstrating how sleep quality of the selected sample of adults could change by drinking 1 to 2 cups of cherry juice per day.

The US National Library of Medicine published an interesting study of a sample of adults suffering from insomnia. Each had 240 ml of cherry juice drunk 2 times a day, for 2 whole weeks.

Their sleep improved considerably, increasing about 84 minutes compared to what they normally slept. Improvement that impacted not only the duration but also the quality of their rest.

These benefits were also directly related to the concentration of melatonin that this food possesses (the hormone that regulates the circadian rhythm and promotes healthy sleep). It seems to be higher than the quantity contained on average in other foods.

Moreover, the presence of antioxidants, of which cherry juice is rich, amplifies the calming and beneficial effect for sleep that melatonin induces.

4. White rice

Science has carried out several studies on the evening intake of carbohydrates and the impact they have on health in general and on the quality of rest.

While for many cereals the results are sometimes unclear, as far as rice intake is concerned, there is no doubt: white rice improves sleep quality.

The SleepFoundation.org published an interesting study on this subject involving 1848 Japanese adults , with different eating habits. For some of them rice represented the main food, others preferred bread and others noodles.

The study showed that those who ate rice slept more and better than those who used bread or noodles.

This result goes in the direction of confirming what has already been said in some previous studies: eating foods with a high glycemic index about 4 hours before going to sleep, helps the sleep phase.

But pay attention. This consideration cannot be applied to any food with a high glycemic index.

Sugary drinks and sweets are also foods with a high glycemic index. But taking them has absolutely not the same beneficial effect on your rest or even worst, on your health. On the contrary, such foods would worsen the quality of your sleep!

Also be careful not to overdo it with white rice. Due to its low fiber level and poor nutritional intake that distinguishes it, starting to eat it that every day could generate other types of compensation.

5. Passionflower

Native to tropical and subtropical areas, passionflower is known in herbal medicine for its therapeutic and healing properties. In fact it has been one of the most used natural remedies for disorders of the nervous sphere.

Thanks to its calming and relaxing action, passionflower can help you mitigate anxious forms and stress. It is a “green” sedative and it is able to improve insomnia.

It is the flavonoids that give passionflower very useful calming properties. These chemical compounds act on the central nervous system. In particular, they would be able to interact positively with the spinal cord area, our sleep centers.

In addition, it stimulates the production of Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid, that is, amino acids produced by our brain to counteract stress and states of strong arousal, as explained by the article published by the US National Library of Medicine.

It’s simple to understand how this fruit can promote deep relaxation states and contribute to the improvement of the speed of falling asleep.

A positive effect on sleep of infusion intake has been scientifically proven, thanks to a study carried out in 41 adults who saw a significant improvement in the quality of their sleep, already after 1 week of intake of the infusion.

6. Chamomile

Chamomile is a centuries-old medicinal herb already known in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

It is known for its flavonoids, a class of very powerful antioxidants, with calming power over those inflammations that often cause chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart problems.

There is also evidence that drinking chamomile strengthens the immune system, reduces anxiety and depressive states, and improves skin quality.

In 2011, a study was carried out on 34 adults to demonstrate a correlation between chamomile intake and improved rest quality. A cup of chamomile extract has been taken 2 times a day for a portion of the adults, for 28 days.

The results were interesting. Those who regularly took the drink fell asleep faster and had much shorter night waking moments than those who took nothing. Results confirmed by another study, made specifically on the female population.

Drinking a chamomile infusion before bedtime, therefore, is certainly an experiment beneficial for you if you want to improve the quality of your rest.

Diet and rest: the Big Picture

Wishing to improve the quality of rest is natural, especially when leading a hectic lifestyle, in which the fast pace is certainly a source of great stress.

The solution, the one with a capital S, the one that suddenly allows us not to wake up at night and sleep deep sleep … well if we want to be realistic, that can’t be sought in a food.

Sleep is a complex mechanism, and is impacted by many factors including exposure to light, emotional tranquility, resting habits and the environment around us.

Nutrition is also a complex mechanism, made up of many small habits. And it can’t be a single food that makes a difference to the quality of your diet. It makes a cumulative effect, which depends on how much and what you eat for weeks, months and years.

The complexity of these 2 systems makes scientific research on their correlation very long and not at all trivial. As you may have understood from this article, there are many specific studies on the subject, but still science does not feel ready to make broader and more generalized statements.

If you really want to improve the quality of your rest and look for answers, start focusing on the “big Picture”, the habits that distinguish your daily life, both in terms of nutrition and rest.

Sleeping habits

When it comes to sleep habits we refer to the daily routines that are part of your daily life as well as the environment in which you sleep, factors that play a fundamental role in your ability to sleep well.

If it is true that some foods can support the functioning of sleep mechanisms, your daily habits and your bed environment hide many pitfalls that you need to learn to recognize.

An example is brightness. If your room is too bright or if you submit yourself to electronic devices when you get to bed, you have to know that you will find it much more difficult to fall asleep. In fact, the process of producing melatonin in your body could be negatively impacted, with the consequences that unfortunately you know very well.

The same goes for noise. And that’s not all.

If it is well known that artificial light and noise can disturb your sleep, it is much less known that the greatest causes of disturbed sleep reside right in your bed.

The mattress you are lying on and the pillow on which you rest your head are fundamental elements when it comes to the quality of your rest. Both have a direct impact on the sleep position you take overnight.

Did you know that many of the sleep disorders result from incorrect posture or a wrong pillow? Read our article – Sleeping position: the impact on your health – to find out how to improve your sleep position

Get ready for a good chamomile, turn off your tablet and browse your favorite book. Lie comfortably on your bed and rest your head on the pillow you deserve: enjoy you rest.

Nightingold daily operates to improve each customer’s resting experience, offering a pillow development service tailored to each individual customer and their specific needs.

Discover the Nightingold world and its revolutionary bespoke pillow creation service.

We can helping in solving your sleep disorders and improving the quality of your life!

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How sleep affects the quality of your skin

The quality of our skin is something we take care every single day.

We do so much to make our skin look great in the morning, particularly when we aren’t getting any younger.

Our bathroom counters are cluttered with special skincare products: cleansing milk, skin masques and face creams. From time to time, we like change them in order to obtain the advantages that seem not getting.

What if one of the biggest secrets to better skin was as simple as laying down and taking a nap?

After all, our body never stops working — especially when we’re asleep.

There’s quite a bit of research and science behind the concept of beauty rest. Sleep is the moment when some of the most important internal recovery takes place, including the epidermal one.

If your daytime skin care routine is a good habit, discover why you shouldn’t give up a good sleep, even if for a couple of days.

How sleep affects the quality of your sleep

You can almost immediately tell that getting a poor night of sleep doesn’t do woke-up-like-this wonders for your face.

The signals of a bad sleep on your face

An interesting study made by the Institute of Karolinska Stockholm (Sweden) has been made to investigate how our face is able to communicate the sleep deprivation.

A group of 20 adults mans and 20 women has been involved in the investigation. A college-aged population, perfect state of health, without sleep diseases. At the beginning of the study, they have been evaluated in terms of skin quality

Afterwards, they have been subjected to a sleep of about 10 days, where they slept for 5 hours per night, losing approximately 2,5 hour of rest per day. After the 10 days they have been evaluated again. The purpose was to investigate how our face can change when subjects to a sleep deprivation, even when linked to few days.

Results show stunning considerations.

Everyone subjected to sleep deprivation shown, again so quickly, evident signals on the face, particularly on their eyes. Swelling, redness, hanging eyelids and darker undereye circles

And that’s not all..

Also the skin shown important difference when comparing the before and after condition.

A bad sleep penalize our relationships

If can be very simple understand how a sleep reduction can affect the quality of our face, is much less intuitive understand that a bad sleep make more complicated our relationships and impact the way we appear attractive and look successful.

A 2017 study found that two days of sleep restriction negatively affected participant’s perceived attractiveness, health, sleepiness, and trustworthiness.

Particularly, it has been analyzed how does change the perception people have about us, whenever we don’t sleep as we should. It seems we appear less attractive and more delicate of health.

This study has involved 150 different people.

A group of 25 universities, all in perfect health, have been subjected to the sleep deprivation.

They have been carefully selected. No smokers, without sleep diseases, and with a daily habits and life rhythms constants and repetitive.

Moreover it has been involved a group of 122 different people for education, cultural aspects and age (between 18 and 65 years old: the raters. They were asked to interact with the previous group. Their interaction have been analyzed to draw the conclusions.

Would they show differences in their human approach between people with sleep deprivation, when compared with the others?

When we don’t sleep enough we are less attractive

The results of this study have been very interesting, particularly if linked to the period of sleep reduction. Only 2 days.

The approach of raters confirmed the theories of the researchers. Everybody shown less willing to socialize with people subjected to sleep deprivation. Moreover, everyone has negatively rated all the subjects that haven’t been able to sleep enough

After only 2 days of 4 hours per night sleeping, people have been evaluated less attractive, slumbered and fragile.

Sleep affects the quality of your skin

What is really important you understand, is that during nightly sleep our body is working in order to recover energies and to regenerate tissues. This is true for your brain, your muscles and your skin too.

During sleep, your skin’s blood flow increases, and the organ rebuilds its collagen and repairs damage from UV exposure, reducing wrinkles and age spots.

Where do you lay your face?

If the quality of your sleep has an indirect impact on your skin, the quality of your pillow has got a direct influence on it.

Sleep is a time when your face inevitably comes into contact with the elements directly around it for a long time, from 6 to 7,5 hour as por average.

When you suffer from restless sleep, your face is even more stressed, You continuously change your pillow position, from one side to another, assuming absurd positions under a face even more scrunched up.

When the pillow you are using is not the proper one, the sensation of discomfort and unsatisfaction is growing even more.

The pillow can become the major cause of your restless sleep and of that unrecognizable sensation that leaves you exhausted.

Moreover, when the surface is not breathable enough, your skin will necessarily suffer and, sometimes, you will get redness and rashes.

This is the reason why Nightingold decided to create an innovative product, able to guarantee a personalized sleep experience and a energizing rest

A tailor made pillow,, created on your needs and desires, studied with a great attention to details.

Only premium materials and high breathability, in order to ensure that “gentle touch” your face and your skin deserve.

Do you want to discover how we can help you having a good rest?

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Colors and quality of sleep

Colors and quality of sleep: what’s in common between these 2 words that appear so different?

Have you ever heard about the power of the colors on your sleep? Did you know that the choice of the color in your bedroom walls can negatively impact the quality of your sleep?

Let’s understand how.

The power of colors

Color is defined as the way in which objects are able to emits or reflects light, offering on the eye different sensations and producing on the brain different reactions.

Every marketing guru knows that colors are like magic: can influence your emotions and your state of mind, your mood and the way you behave. And that’s not all.

It’s scientifically proven that colors have a direct impact on blood pressure and heartbeats.

Here following you can find a graph to show you the link between colors and emotions. Red color, for example, increase passion, even anger, and excitement.

Colors and the quality of sleep

If color is powerful enough to influence mood or increase blood pressure, then how much is color affecting our sleep?

Sleep is not just rest, it is also how our body repairs, revives and re-energizes for the next day.

Read more about it: The importance of a good night’s sleep

Not many would consider it. A good night’s sleep can be affected by your surroundings just as much as it can be affected by your physical being, particularly if you constantly struggle to fall or stay asleep, then changing your bedroom color could help you get better rest at night.

Providing the correct colors in the room is an important factor when looking to increase sleep quality. Most bedroom paint colors, if used correctly, can be a great addition to a restful room. With others, try to rest can be a mess!

The best colors for a deep rest

Utilizing proper colors for the wall of your bedroom id a factor that you shouldn’t under evaluate when you are struggling to improve the quality of your sleep.

In fact, when using the proper ones, you will receive an unconscious sensation of wellbeing and relax, that’s very useful when speaking about quality of sleep. Viceversa, there are some colors that can really disturb your rest.

So what’s the “magic” color when it comes to bedroom hues?

A study of over 2,000 Travelodge hotels helped determine which colors help and hurt sleep (, and give us valuable insights on how room color can influence your sleep, mood, and even sets the tone for your living environment.

Analyzing 2,000 homes to investigate the influence of bedroom color schemes against the quality and quantity of sleep they are getting every night.

Results are astonishing. Some colors have been declared the best ones, while others must be avoided. Before looking into details, let’s share some general rules underlined from the research.

It has been observed that toned down or muted shades of the same color promote better sleep than more vibrant primary ones.

It is also recommended to use a flat finish over glossy. This helps colors appear softer, and softer means sleepier.

Here you are: a list of the best colors that have been considered the best ones for your sleep.

Blue

Blue is the best color for the walls of your bedroom.

Research has found that people who have blue bedrooms fall asleep more easily because of the calming properties of the color.

In fact, this kind of color owns calming properties, even helping to reduce blood pressure and heart rate, which are essential in achieving a good quality night’s sleep.

Nature offers several several calming things associated with blue: from a clear sky to a waterfront. In the same way, a blue bedroom is also conducive to sleep.

A light or pastel blue is a great base color to paint walls while including some secondary colors as accents.

With the color blue being so inviting and friendly different shades could also be used if no accent color is desired. Setting up the room to look like a sky or a beach can also amp up the relaxation factor.

But why the blue color?

The reason has a whole lot to do with your eyes.

Specialized receptors in the retina of your eyes, called ganglion cells, are responsible for relaying information to the part of your brain that controls your circadian rhythm. This communication impact the functioning of your body, as well as sleep cycles (discover more about sleep cycles functioning).

It seams that these ganglion cells are most sensitive to blue. When picked up by your ganglion cells and relayed to your brain, helps reduce blood pressure and heart rate, all of which help you receive a solid night’s sleep.

Yellow

The second most favorable color scheme for inducing a good night’s sleep is yellow, as it is an upbeat and pleasant color.

Yellow provide good vibes and happy energy. This causes a better sleep as it gives a positive spin to dreams and relaxation periods.

Yellow stimulates the nervous system which aids relaxation, while also creating a warm and cozy atmosphere.

Paler and lighter colors yellows are suggested and are recommended in moderation, as they are on the warm color palette and have the potential to warm up the room if not careful.

Pairing yellows with grays is a popular combination as they compliment each other and are both colors that help you sleep.

Green

Green is a color associated with nature. Think grass, gardens, trees. And as we all know, nature is calming and soothing more than anything else.

In terms of Feng Shui, the green natural color is linked to love, marriage, positive energy, reputation, and fame. These are all very positive elements.

Therefore green color help your body in relaxing and calming, achieving the deepest cycle of your sleep. Which is best for feeling well rested in the morning.

When paired with other shades of white or honey, green makes a bedroom inviting and restful, and makes you want to go to sleep right away

Green it’s responsible, therefore, of a restful, calming environment which helps relaxation which is essential in inducing sleep.

Light grey / silver

A silver bedroom/décor is the fourth most popular sleep inducing color scheme . It seems like a strange color, but people who have silver bedrooms feel that they are soothed by the metallic tones.

Additionally, the colors of silver and gray can help mimic moonlight, which signals to the body that it is time to sleep.

But pay attention! To let that body signal work, it is important to keep places of rest for primarily that without spending too much time in bed while doing other things (like watching tv, playing video games, or eating).

Moreover, the color is usually associated with a gloomy, rainy day when you just want to stay in bed. Painting your bedroom gray could have the same effect, helping you sleep more easily and feeling more refreshed.

Orange

An orange bedroom is the fifth most popular sleep inducing color.

Shades of orange add warmth to the room and help create a stable and reassuring atmosphere. It seems the orange color can even help digestion too, especially when eateing a large or late evening meal.

Though one may think orange is an aggressive or louder color, it is actually used to promote relaxation, specifically for the muscles. It is important to not overuse the color in the space, it is much better used as an accent.

As blue and orange are complementary colors and pair great together, they can be used together to promote both relaxation and tranquility, making for a great area of rest.

Pink

If you thought pink is only for children and women, you need to open your eyes.

Time and again, pink has featured on the list of restful bedroom paint colors, and not without reasons.

Pink is one of the most calming colors, known to promote feelings of joy and peace. It contributes to the quality sleep that is commonly desired

When barely-there pink is mixed with other colors like white and silver, it creates and soft and pretty look for the room.

But pay attention. As other colors that include the color red in the making, it is important to stay away from any pink that is too deep, or anything that gets closer to red on the color wheel. It is better to stick with paler and lighter shades to keep the room soft and inviting.

Lavender

Another soothing color from the purple family, lavender has been found to boost rest at nighttime.

Lavender is also known to boost creativity, so waking up in a lavender room could lead to a more productive day.

Deep purple can give a feeling of luxury that can promote sleep in the sense of safety and security.

Additionally, the darkness of the color can help remind the body that when it is dark it is time to sleep. But pay attention. As explained for the grey, to let that body signal work, it is important to keep places of rest for primarily that without spending too much time in bed while doing other things (like watching tv, playing video games, or eating).

When paired with white, lavender makes pretty bedroom décor while also promoting calm.

Purple is also a great addition to blue schemes as they partner well together.

The unappropriated colors

In contrast, the study also revealed the least favored bedroom color schemes for obtaining a regular good quality night’s sleep.

Red, brown and dark grey seem to be the worst ones. Using these colors in your bedroom are also more likely to promote vivid dreams or even nightmares; resulting in fragmented sleep and you feeling tired the next day.

Although the paint colors alone cannot guarantee proper sleep, they do have a certain impact on the quality of sleep.

Creating a serene and restful atmosphere in your bedroom could actually help you get better sleep every night.

in addition to that, choose to adopt proper behaviors to guarantee to tour body the best conditions to reenergized yourself. Make a check to the body position you assume during the night e try to understand if the pillow you are utilizing is supporting you in the best way. Learn more about the sleeping positions and the impact on your health.

Remember: Take care of your sleep means taking care of your health.

Nightingold works daily to improve rest experience of each of our client, offering a special service to create tailor made pillows, based on needs and desires.

Discover the world of Nightingold and his revolutionary tailor made service

We can help you in solving your sleep disease and improve the quality of your life.

For any information don’t hesitate to contact us, click our Nightingale!

We are happy to put at your disposal our knowledge.

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Memory Foam, the material invented by NASA

Memory foam is the most recent innovation inside the materials applied to bedding sector. It is recognized for its ability to help relieve painful pressure points during sleep, so much to be utilized into orthopedic seating pads, mattress and other paddings for the severely disabled.

Bedding sector is demonstrating a crescent attention for pillows. Everyone knows how important are mattresses in order to sleep well and the correlated impacts on your daily life.

But what about pillows? Are you aware about the key role they play in getting a good night’s sleep?

Think about how many hours a year you use your pillow. Have you ever counted them? Over 2500 hours a year, that’s over 100 days non-stop! Your pillow it’s much more than just something to put your head on at night! Un unappropriated pillow can mean that you don’t sleep as deeply as you should. Waking up from deep sleep to try getting more comfortable positions, resulting in not refreshing rests: sounds familiar?

Let’s better understand what memory foam is and what are its correlated advantages and disadvantages when applied to pillows.

Memory Foam: what is it?

As far as pillows go, memory foam is the current buzzword.

Memory foam material started out as the idea of a NASA Engineer in the 60s . It was invented in 1966 as a solution to improve sleeping conditions in shuttles.

For many years, pillows have been filled with duck and goose feathers that, while soft in the beginning, compress throughout the night, leaving your head to rest on a flatbed of fluff. The lack of support found with down pillows has led some traditional users to experience unsavory health complications.

This the main reason why today viscoelastic polyurethane memory foam is one of the most popular material for pillows and mattresses.

Memory foam was designed to be an innovative material, and thus has very unusual and unique properties. It is a dense foam that responds to heat and pressure from the human body to provide a supportive, cushioning shape. When not in use, it springs back into its original form.

Continue reading to better understand characteristics and advantages of it.

Technical characteristics

A visco-elastic material

The term viscoelasticity underlies two different concepts: viscosity and elasticity.

Viscosity

This term technically describes the resistance to flow. In the context of pillows, it refers to the resistance of the material when a pressure is applied.

The higher the viscosity, the higher resistance the pillow make to the pressure of your head. As a result, your head will be increasingly supported, leading you to a higher sensation of hardness under your head.

Elasticity

The ability to contour while still being able to return to it’s original shape. This characteristic allow you to maintain the same level of comfort during the whole night, without needing manual adjustments to give back volume and shape to your compressed pillow.

As you can clearly understand it has got a direct impact on the quality of your sleep. No adjustments of the pillow during the night means an uninterrupted rest.

As you might expect, when you combine these two factors you get a pillow with the perfect amount of support and comfort, ensuring a high quality sleep for the whole night.

Thus, if made by premium materials, a visible imprint is left behind and last for entire seconds. Memory foam adjusts around pressure and is slow to bounce back, which gives it that typical “cushioning” feel.

The internal structure

The internal structure of this kind of foam is made by bubbles or ‘cells’, that are open. Thanks to its structure, the matrix allow the motion of the air, reducing the proliferation of dust mites and improving the freshness of the pillow.

Benefits of Memory Foam in Pillows

Sleeping on memory foam pillows can provide a number of health benefits.

Memory foam pillows are special because of the heat reactive cushioning insulator. What this means is that when pressure is applied along with heat, the foam reshapes itself to conform to the object.

That’s the reason why memory foam pillows shape to the head and neck better than other pillows.

This characteristic allow distributing weight evenly, relieving pressure, and helping with neck and back pain. This can also help with a better night’s sleep and a refreshed rest.

Memory foam is also beneficial for those who share a bed with a restless sleeper. Because it’s so energy absorbent, the tossing and turning of a sleeping partner on a memory foam pillow will have little to no ripple effect. They’re also normally squeak-free.

Top 6 reasons to use memory foam pillows

1. Spinal Alignment

Do you suffer from headaches, neck or back pain? One of the major cause is the poor spinal alignment.

The main health benefits of sleeping on memory foam pillows is spinal alignment.

As you lay your head and neck on the pillow, the weight and warmth of the body allow the foam to reshape itself. This forces the pillow to give greater resistance under the heaviest parts of the head, and equally support the lighter, more pressure sensitive neck area.

Proper spinal alignment helps reduce tossing, turning and discomfort. It allows your muscles to relax properly offering natural spinal support to your body, adjusting to your unique shape promoting a deep restful sleep.

2. Pressure Points elimination

Memory Foam is designed to contour to the unique shape of your body to help support your head and neck. They provide even support for the neck and head. The foam reforms less where it does not need to, and more where the stress is increased. This allows for uniform pressure on all areas of the head and neck, eliminating pressure points.

3. Hygienic and Hypoallergenic

Memory foam pillows are known to be hypoallergenic and free of dust mites. Remember that this material has been developed by NASA to improve sleeping conditions in shuttles.

Memory foam products are considered safe and nontoxic and are naturally hygienic inhibiting the growth of bacteria, mold, fungus and dust mites. This is an advantage for those with allergies to dust mites, feathers, or other natural pillow materials.

4. Snoring reduction

All types of snoring have one thing in common: an obstruction in the upper respiratory tract.

A regular pillow tends to tilt your head in an incline. This causes an obstruction in the airway which results in snoring related problems. The result is snoring.

When your head remains aligned with your neck and spine with a memory foam pillow, these passages will remain open and allow for proper respiratory function

5. Side Sleepers best solution

The lack of support found with most of traditional pillows has led some users to experience unsavory health complications.

Specifically, for those who mainly sleep on their sides, it’s common to experience stiff necks each morning due to improper alignment of the spine.

The optimal position for the neck during rest is what experts call the “neutral” position. This is when that natural curve of the neck is at the perfect and comfortable angle, so as not to overly bend or compress the joints.

For this ideal alignment of the neck to occur, it’s best to find the proper pillow. Have a look to our article that deeper explain the impact of the sleeping position on your health, when using un unappropriated pillow.

6. Sleep Apnea

The spinal alignment and the consequent alignment of the airways is a key factor for those who suffer from Sleep Anea, allowing easier breathing. The lack of pressure points has also an indirect benefit to those with sleep apnea, as there is less tossing and turning, leading to sound, restful sleep.

Disadvantages of Memory Foam Pillow

Because of its capacity to contour head and face, memory foam is unsuitable as a bedding choice for babies or small children, who can get stuck in the contours and struggle to breathe.

It should be noted that memory foam pillows cost more than competitive traditional pillows, but they provide a number of benefits that traditional pillows do not provide. When it comes to comfort and quality sleep, cost should not be a concerning factor.

Pay attention about cheap memory foam pillow: beware of it!

In fact, the most of the disadvantages you may experience from a memory foam pillows are linked to the poor quality of the material.

Current market demand of this material is increasing, thanks to the substantial benefit it ensure.

However it cannot be considered a cheap solution, since the high costs of the raw material. The tentative to transform it in a product for massive production is leading to poor quality products with no viscoelastic properties but commercially still called memory foam.

A poor quality memory foam

When the quality is poor, memory foam tends to retain heat and body humidity, losing the material breathability power. It may result in un uncomfortable warm sensation and in the formation of harmful bacteria.

Moreover a poor quality material doesn’t present viscoelastic power, particularly for what concern elasticity. And with it, it lose all the associated benefits explained before.

When the product must be cheap producers tend to reduce all the internal costs, not only the raw material expenses. Important process phases are skipped, having a direct impact on the final result quality. If not well processed, memory foam products can give off a strong chemical smell, a phenomenon known as off-gas.

Therefore your bad experience with a memory foam pillow is certainly linked to the poor quality of the product.

Conclusion

Now you may have a better idea about what memory foam is and the positive impact on the quality of your sleep and on your health more in general.

You have also understood the importance of focus on quality avoiding cheaper products ,if you want to benefit from the explained advantages.

Particularly, if you’re someone who suffers from poor sleep quality, then you should consider making the switch. The ability to contour to the body promotes a healthy sleeping position and improved sleep. They cost a bit more up-front but will pay dividends long term.

You also have learned that it doesn’t exist the perfect pillow for everybody. When choosing a memory foam pillow a lot of factors should be taken into consideration: your sleeping habits (sleeping position, posture, …), your body dimension (a basketball player has different needs than a marathon runner) and a lot of other factors that play a role in the alignment of your spine.

Even it’s not so easy, you spend so much time with your pillow that it’s worth understand how to select one that’s right for you.

Nightingold can help you in easily solve this issue: our pillow are tailor made solutions designed starting from YOU, your necessities and your desires. Discover our world and the innovative process we have designed to create the best sleep experience for each single person.

For any further information don’t hesitate to contact us, click our Nightingale

We are happy to put at your disposal our knowledge.

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Neck pain and stomach sleepers: what’s the correlation?

Neck pain affects 45% of today’s working population, so it is something we all deal with at one point or another. It ranks in the top 5 disorders in the United States, with 10-20% of people reporting incidents of neck pain.

As with so many things, when it comes to neck pain, prevention is fundamental.

If it’s true that some causes of neck pain are not under your control, such as age-related wear and tear. But on the other hand, there are many things you can do to minimize your risk.

One place to start is to look at how you sleep and what effect this may have on neck pain.

Do you regularly sleep on your stomach?

Sleeping on your stomach is the most harmful habit to the health and function of our spine and our nervous system.

Unless you manage to find a way to breathe through the pillow, you have to turn your head to one side when you’re sleeping on your stomach. This causes your neck to be twisted, putting your spine and head out of alignment, leading to some severe damage. You probably won’t notice this damage after only one night, but the problems will unquestionably become evident over time.

You have to imagine that middle part of your body is exactly where most of the weight is. So when the head is turned to the side and then the weight of the body is placed upon it, all is goanna a be really compressed: the muscles, ligaments, tendons, joints, discs, nerves, etc.

In fact in our neck there are many complex and important structures, including the top seven bones in the spine (vertebrae), the disks between the vertebrae, blood vessels, spinal nerves, muscles and ligaments. Problems with any one of these can result in neck pain.

The application of this stress of stomach sleepers will lead to an acceleration of degeneration of the discs and joints. Some of the worst degenerative disc disease of the spine have been shown in those people who spent their life sleeping on their belly.

Not only the neck

Sleeping on your stomach is tough on your spine: the back is arched and your neck is turned to the side.

Stress on the neck means stress on the spine, that is the structure of your entire body. Additionally, since the spine is a pipeline for your nerves, spinal stress can cause pain just about anywhere in your body. Have you ever experienced tingling and numbness, as if parts of you have “fallen asleep”? Now you can understand better the reasons that stand behind.

Herniated disk and sleeping comfortably

One of the biggest neck problems that you certainly don’t want to experience is the so-called herniated disk. This issue appears when the spinal vertebrae shift enough to cause a rupture of the gelatinous disk inside, causing the gel to leak out and irritate the nerves.

Spinal discs act as cushions between vertebrae, helping the spine bend and move more fluidly. Over time, discs may become dehydrated, less flexible, or injured, causing them to herniate or bulge.

If you suffer from herniated disk sleeping on your belly is really dangerous for you! Remember that this position alters the natural curve of the spine, stressing even more a hinky part of your body.

Correlated damages

Research suggests that not just sleep position, but the quality of your sleep can play a role in musculoskeletal pain, including neck.

Researchers compared musculoskeletal pain in around 4.000 healthy men and women with and without sleeping disturbances. Sleeping disturbances include difficulty falling asleep, waking early in the mornings or more generally a non-restorative sleep.

The research demonstrates that, after only 1 year, people who reported from moderate to severe problems of sleep were significantly more likely to develop chronic musculoskeletal pain than those with a good quality of sleep.

In fact, sleep disturbances disrupt the muscle relaxation and healing that normally occur during sleep. Additionally, it is well established that pain can disrupt sleep, contributing to a vicious cycle of pain disrupting sleep, and sleep problems contributing to pain.

A dead horse or something more?

Two sleeping positions are easiest on the neck: on your side or on your back. For more information about it take a loot to our article: Sleeping position: the impact on your health

Preferred sleeping positions are often set early in life and can be tough to change, not to mention that we don’t often wake up in the same position in which we fell asleep. Still, it’s worth trying to start the night sleeping on your back or side in a well-supported, healthy position when not used to.

But it’s not only a matter of bad habits token up as children

A lot of time sleeping on your stomach hidden the inability to find that ‘aah’ sensation that allow you to immediately drop off to sleep. How often have you turned over in your bed, moving your pillow from one side to another, hugging him tight and immediately after throwing it, desperate not to find the position?

These are the typical cases where you end up falling asleep on your stomach, generally with your arms under the pillow and assuming a strange position with your back, bending al least one leg up to touch your elbow with the knee.

The stomach position is the solution your body has unconsciously found to an uncomfortable bed environment.

In fact, if you think about it, you can understand why. In the stomach position your body has got much more freedom of movements and can operate somehow to give you a better sensation of comfort even if with a palliative solution. But … at what cost?

Proper pillows can minimize neck pain

People have learned the importance of the mattress to sleep well, but for most people the pillow doesn’t have a proper identity yet.

Don’t make this mistake!

The pillow play a central role in the quality of your sleep. It’s the main responsible of the alignment of the spine, impacting your health on two different sides.

Firstly, it has a direct impact on the physical/mechanical state of your spine, avoiding tensions on the muscles or tendons and a more general inflammation of nerves.

Secondly it directly impacts on the comfort you experience when lying down on your bed. The sensation of well-being comes when your spine is well positioned, and it’s when your body begins to relax!

With a proper pillow you don’t have to struggle finding the proper position and …. why not, you can say goodbye a your bad habits.

What does it mean proper pillow?

A proper pillow is able to align your spine, and it depends on different factors:

– your sleeping position: you can imagine that if you sleep on one side you need a higher support for your head for its correct alignment with the spine that if you sleep on your back

– your dimensions: a basketball player has different needs from a girl of about 1,60. If we compare them when sleeping on their side, for example, it’s clear to understand why the athlete need a higher support under his head to ensure the correct alignment of the whole spine. The dimension of his shoulders, the thickness of his back and his muscles make him a lot different from the girl.

Different positions + different physicality = Tailor made pillow

Tailor made pillow

If you think how unique is each of us, with his sizes, habits and desires, you can starting to understand how it’s unlikely that a standard pillow can exactly fit your necessities.

If it’s universally recognized that the same model of shoes is not adapting to all feet, we still believe that it can exist a pillow suitable for everybody.

Anyone who has had the experience of a handmade product needs no further convincing.

Nightingold tailormade service creates a pillow only for you

The process created to design a pillow for each customer starts from a deep investigation of body measures, sleeping positions, needs, and habits. A co-design activity between the R&D team and the customer to ensure a good night’s sleep and the consequent sensation of well-being during the day

The quality of your rest depends on the quality of your pillow. Think about it.

Don’t jeopardize your health.

For any information don’t hesitate to contact us, click our Nightingale

We are happy to put at your disposal our knowledge.

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Sleep cycles and stages: do you know how it works?

Sleep is a complex and dynamic process that affects how you function in ways scientists are now beginning to understand. During a night our sleep is marked by an alternation of 4 different stages: this is what we call sleep cycles.

A sleep cycle progress through the stages from light to deep sleep then reverse back ending with time in REM phase, where dreams occur. Don’t underestimate none of these phases: each one is important to perform good sleep cycles.

Let’s try to understand better the complex mechanism that stands behind our sleep and, therefore, our health.

Sleep architecture

Sleep architecture represents the cyclical pattern of sleep as it shifts between the different sleep stages. It allows us to produce a picture of what our sleep looks like over the course of a night, taking into account various depths of sleep as well as arousal to wakefulness. Sleep architecture can be represented by a graph called a hypnogram.

There are generally four to five different sleep cycles during a given night and each of one lasts for about 90 to 120 minutes, shifting from lighter stages to deepest ones. All single stage is important for a good sleep quality and for your health.

Let’s understand better.

Sleep Cycles

There are two basic types of sleep: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep (which has three different stages). Each is linked to specific brain waves and neuronal activity. You cycle through all stages of non-REM and REM sleep several times during a typical night, with increasingly longer, deeper REM periods occurring toward morning.

A sleep cycle is the progression through the various stages of non-REM sleep to REM sleep before beginning the progression again with non-REM sleep.

One does not go straight from deep sleep to REM sleep, however. Rather, a sleep cycle progress through the stages of non-REM sleep from light to deep sleep, then reverse back from deep sleep to light sleep, ending with time in REM sleep before starting over in light sleep again.

Typically, a person would begin a sleep cycle every 90-120 minutes resulting in four to five cycles per sleep time, or hours spent asleep.

A person’s sleep time (approximately 6-8 hours for adults) can be thought of as 2 halves. The first half for a majority of people consists mostly of a deeper sleep with sporadic periods of Stage 1 and short REM periods. As the night progresses, the lightest sleep increase with lengthening periods of REM occurring.

Keep reading to discover the characteristics of each sleep stages.

Sleep Stages

You have already understood that your 6-8 hours of sleep are made by an alternation of different sleep cycles (from four to five per sleep time) and that a sleep cycle itself is the progression through the various stages of non-REM sleep to REM sleep.

A complete sleep cycle progress between 5 different phases:

non-REM phase
- Stage 1: the lightest stage of sleep
- Preparing for deep sleep: Stage 2 and Stage 3:
- Stage 4: the deep sleep
REM Phase: the deepest sleep, where dreams occur

For a majority of people, a sleep cycle begins with a short period of Stage 1 sleep whereby the body begins to relax.

The lightest stage of sleep – Stage 1

Light sleep initiates your sleep cycle and acts as a transition to deeper sleep stages. During this stage your muscles begin to relax, your heart rate and breathing slow down, and you wake up easily. During light sleep, you can expect the following:

muscles relax and may jerk
respiration slows
heart rate decreases
body temperature drops
sleep begins

Stage 1 is the lightest stage of non-REM sleep. Often defined by the presence of slow eye movements, this drowsy sleep stage can be easily disrupted causing awakenings or arousals. During this short period (lasting several minutes) your brain wave activity begins to slow from that of wake.

While drifting in and out of Stage 1, people may occasionally experience sensation of falling, hypnic jerks (called Myoclonus) or abrupt muscle spasms

Though arousals or awakenings are prevalent, Stage 1 is important as it allows for the body to enter Stage 2; the first quantifiable stage of NREM sleep.

Preparing for deep sleep – Stage 2 and Stage 3

It is the first actual stage of defined non-REM sleep. In the second stage, your body starts preparing for deep sleep. Awakenings or arousals do not occur as easily as in Stage 1 sleep and the slow moving eye rolls discontinue. Your heartbeat and breathing slow, and muscles relax even further and yr body temperature drops. Brain wave activity slows but is marked by brief bursts of electrical activity.

This phases occur for longer periods than Stage 1. For most, they comprises approximately 40-60% of total sleep time

The deep sleep – Stage 4

Entering the third stage, you are now in deep sleep. Stage 3 is known as deep non-REM sleep. It reduces your sleep drive as it’s the most restorative stage of sleep and it occurs in longer periods during the first half of the night. It consists of extremely slow brain waves called delta waves, which are intermixed with smaller, faster brain waves.

Pay attention to this phase when taking a nap

If you take a short nap during the day, you’re still able to fall asleep at night. But if you take a nap long enough to fall into deep sleep, you have more difficulty falling asleep at night because you reduced your need for sleep.

Awakenings or arousals are rare and often it is difficult to awaken someone in this stage of sleep. People waking up from a deep sleep are disoriented or groggy. Instead Parasomnias (sleepwalking, sleep talking or somniloquy and night terrors) occur during the deepest stage of sleep.

This restorative stage does not last as long as Stage 2, lasting between 5-15% of total time asleep for most adults. For children and adolescents Stage 3 is much higher in duration.

Deep sleep focuses on your body

It is the most rejuvenating and restorative sleep stage, promoting human growth hormone and restores your body and muscles from the stresses of the day. Your immune system also restores itself.

Much less is known about deep sleep than REM sleep. It may be during this stage that the brain also refreshes itself for new learning the following day.

During deep sleep, you can expect the following:

blood pressure drops
blood flow increases to muscles
repair hormones (i.e. growth hormone) are released
tissue growth and cell repair occurs
long, slow brain waves
brain flushes out waste

The deepest state of sleep, where dreams occurs – REM

Entering the last stage, also called REM sleep (rapid eye movement). It is the deepest state of sleep, where dreams occur and it is essential to re-energizing your mind. REM is associated with dreaming, memory consolidation, learning, and problem solving

In REM stage your eyes are closed but move rapidly from side-to-side, due to the intense dream and brain activity you go through in this stage. Your breathing becomes faster and irregular, and your heart rate and blood pressure increase to near waking levels. Your arm and leg muscles become temporarily paralyzed, which prevents you from acting out your dreams. As you age, you sleep less of your time in REM sleep.

In the REM period, you can expect the following:

respiration increases
heart rate increases
temperature regulation is switched off
brain activity is high; vivid dreams may occur
body becomes immobile to stop you from acting out dreams
blood flow increases to genitals

REM can occur at time during the sleep cycle, but on average it begins 90 minutes following sleep onset and is short in duration as it is the first REM period of the night. Following REM, the process resumes starting with periods of Stage 1, 2 & 3 intermixed before returning to REM again for longer periods of time as sleep time continues

A person typically experiences three to five REM periods throughout sleep time with the longest REM period right before awakening for the day. Awakenings and arousals can occur more easily in REM; being awoken during a REM period can leave one feeling groggy or overly sleepy. Consistent interruptions to REM sleep can lead to a host of potential issues, such as sleep inertia.

Dreaming

Everyone dreams. A French study found that all people do in fact dream, whether they remember their dreams or not.

You spend about 2 hours each night dreaming but may not remember most of your dreams. Its exact purpose isn’t known, but dreaming may help you process your emotions. Events from the day often invade your thoughts during sleep, and people suffering from stress or anxiety are more likely to have frightening dreams.

Dreams can be experienced in all stages of sleep but usually are most vivid in REM sleep. Some people dream in color, while others only recall dreams in black and white.

A Full Night’s Sleep

Your body goes through the 4 sleep stages from four to five times each night. The progression through the various stages of non-REM sleep to REM sleep can be visualized through the hypnogram, as following:

As you can see cycles earlier in the night tend to have more non-REM sleep while later cycles have a higher proportion of REM. By the final cycle, your body may even skip non-REM deep sleep entirely.

Considering that each single cycle last more and less 90 minutes, you can immediately see that overall your body spends more time in non-REM phases of sleep.

Sleep cycles by age

Sleep changes throughout a person’s life. From a newborn, through toddler years, school age, adolescent and adulthood, sleep is changing.

0 – 4 months: Newborn

Do not have distinctive sleep waves. Sleep is categorized as “Active”, “Quiet” and “Indeterminate”. Active sleep is the equivalent to REM sleep and quiet sleep is equivalent to non-REM sleep. A majority of the time, newborns are in active sleep which allows for frequent arousals or awakenings; this is necessary for regular periods of feeding.

4 months – 1 year: Infants

Standard sleep stage distinction is now apparent. Sleep becomes more consolidated and sleeping routines can be developed, sleep is typically 10-13 hours per 24 hour period with 2-3 daytime naps occurring.

1 year – 3 years: Toddlers

With sleeping patterns fully developed, children spend approximately 25% in Stage 3 deep sleep with almost an equal amount of time in REM.

Average sleep time is 9.5-10.5 hours per 24 hour period. Typically naps will reduce to 1 per day most likely occurring early in the afternoon to allow for proper nighttime sleep.

3 – 6 years: Pre-School

Sleep time is similar to that of toddlers, approximately 9-10 hours per 24 hour period. The afternoon nap usually subsides around 3-4 years for a majority of children. Stage 3 sleep still remains high in relation to total sleep time.

6 years – 12 years: School Age

Sleep time remains unchanged; 9-10 hours per 24 hour period and Stage 3 remains approximately 20-25% of total sleep time. Restorative sleep is important for growth and development.

12 years and beyond: Adolescent

Sleep time for adolescents is approximately 9-9.5 hours per 24 hour period. There are physiological changes in circadian rhythm that occur causing sleep onset to be later. This internal shift is the cause for many adolescents to have later lights out and the desire to want to “sleep in” in the morning.

Adults

As a person ages, the circadian rhythm shifts back and sleep again appears to regulate to approximately 6.5-8 hours of sleep per 24 hour period as adult.

How much sleep do you need?

Your need for sleep and your sleep patterns change as you age, but this varies significantly across individuals of the same age. There is no magic “number of sleep hours” that works for everybody of the same age.

Babies initially sleep as much as 16 to 18 hours per day, which may boost growth and development (especially of the brain). School-age children and teens on average need about 9.5 hours of sleep per night. Most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep a night, but after age 60, nighttime sleep tends to be shorter, lighter, and interrupted by multiple awakenings.

In general, people are getting less sleep than they need due to longer work hours and the availability of round-the-clock entertainment and other activities. Many people feel they can “catch up” on missed sleep during the weekend but, depending on how sleep-deprived they are, sleeping longer on the weekends may not be adequate.

Take a look to our article “The importance of a good night’s sleep” , where you can deeply understand the impact of sleep deprivation on your health.

You have to take into consideration that the quality of sleep have a direct impact on your life, as well as the quantity. Actually the World Sleep Society states that sleep quality is a better indicator of overall health , mood, and life satisfaction than sleep quantity.

Periods of wakefulness cause interruption of your sleep cycles and, when frequent, denature the quality of your sleep, with a big impact on the quality of your daily life and, unfortunately, on your health.

Impact of unappropriated pillow on your sleep

Do you know that one of the major causes of nocturnal awakenings are the shifts of sleeping position and that often the causes are hidden inside your bed, particularly behind an unappropriated pillow?

A pillow that doesn’t suite your measures can feel you discomfort, causing a restless sleep with a lot of awakenings trying to find a better position. Moreover an unappropriated pillow can affect the way you lay on your bed, causing you bed sleeping habits with a direct impact on your spine and more in general on your health.

If you want to discover if your sleeping position is causing you health risks or if you want to understand how to improve it read our article.

Nightingold can help you designing the pillow for YOU.

For any information don’t hesitate to contact us, click our Nightingale!

We are happy to put at your disposal our knowledge.

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The importance of a good night’s sleep

Having a good night’s sleep is, unfortunately, not so common. Do you know that people today get considerably less sleep than their ancestors, and that the quality of their sleep has decreased as well?

A good night’s sleep is incredibly important for your health, as much as eating healthy and exercising.

A recent research by Kristen Knutson , a professor of neurology and researcher, showed that there was a significant change in the duration of people sleep from 1975 to 2006; an increase of short sleep periods of less than 5.5 hours.

Demographically it seems that people from 45 to 54 years of age were most likely to be short sleepers and that women were less likely to be short sleepers than men.

Actually it has been demonstrated a direct correlation between sleep deprivation and stress or other psychological diseases.

Why it’s a a good night’s sleep so important?

The way you feel while you’re awake depends in part on what happens while you’re sleeping.

Do you know that during sleep your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health? In children and teens, sleep even helps support growth and development.

More generally, sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety.

The damage of a poor night’s sleep

Sleep deficiency is a phenomena that can manifest itself in different ways.

If you are lucky, it causes to you immediate and visible effects: fatigue, muscle pain, and nervousness are the most common effects.

But sleep deprivation may be more treacherous. It is directly correlated with the increase of some chronic health problems. It also can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and get along with others.

Emotional Well-Being and Healthy Brain Function

Sleep helps your brain work properly. While you’re sleeping, your brain is preparing for the next day. It’s forming new pathways to help you learn and remember information.

Sleep deprivation have far-reaching effects on cognitive performance

If you’re sleep deficient, you may have trouble making decisions, solving problems, controlling your emotions and behavior.

And there is more. Sleep deficiency also has been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior.

Children and teens who are sleep deficient may feel angry and impulsive, sad or depressed and may have problems getting along with others.

Physical Health

Sleep plays an important role in your physical health.

The health of your spine is put to the test every single day from the position you are assuming while you sleep. Do you know the impact your sleep position may have on your health?

But there is much more.

Sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease , kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.

Sleep deficiency also increases the risk of obesity, particularly on teenagers. A good rest maintain, in fact, a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). The unbalance of these 2 hormones that occurs when you don’t get enough sleep is the cause of the feeling of hunger that brings you overeating.

Risk for diabetes can be increased from sleep deficiency, because it has an impact on the reaction of your body to insulin .

Sleep also supports healthy growth and development, as well as your immune system. It relies on sleep to stay healthy and to properly respond to common infections.

Daytime Performance and Safety

Productivity is another aspect of your life that is impacted by the quality of your sleep. People who are sleep deficient are less productive at work and school, taking longer to finish tasks, having a slower reaction time, and making more mistakes.

Can you imagine that after losing just 1–2 hours for several night your ability to function suffers as much as you haven’t slept at all for a day or two?

Lack of sleep also may lead to microsleep. Microsleep refers to brief moments of sleep that occur when you’re normally awake.

You can’t control microsleep, and you might not be aware of it. For example, have you ever driven somewhere and then not remembered part of the trip? If so, you may have experienced microsleep.

Even if you’re not driving, microsleep can affect how you function. If you’re listening to a lecture, for example, you might miss some of the information or feel like you don’t understand the point.

The worst is that often people don’t realize they are suffering of this problem: even with limited or poor-quality sleep, they may still think that they can function well.

People aren’t aware of the risks of sleep deficiency and the importance of a good night’s sleep.

Signs and symptoms of sleep deficiency

The signs and symptoms of sleep deficiency may differ between children and adults. Children might be overly active and have problems paying attention. They also might misbehave, and their school performance can suffer.

Sleep-deficient children may feel angry and impulsive, have mood swings, feel sad or depressed, or lack motivation.

You may not notice how sleep deficiency affects your daily routine. A common myth is that people can learn to get by on little sleep with no negative effects. However, research shows that getting enough quality sleep at the right times is vital for mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety.

To find out whether you’re sleep deficient, try keeping a sleep diary for a couple of weeks. Write down how much you sleep each night, how alert and rested you feel in the morning, and how sleepy you feel during the day.

Compare the amount of time you sleep each day with the average amount of sleep recommended for your age group by American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), as shown in the chart below:

Note that if you routinely lose sleep or choose to sleep less than needed, the sleep loss adds up. The total sleep lost is called your sleep debt.

Sleeping more on days off might be a sign that you aren’t getting enough sleep. Although extra sleep on days off might help you feel better, it can upset your body’s sleep–wake rhythm.

Sleeping position and sleeping environment are directly involved in the way you are sleeping and have a direct impact on the quality of your sleep.

Do you know that behind a restless sleep often stays an unappropriated pillow? A pillow that doesn’t feet your necessities can cause you that sensation of discomfort that doesn’t allow you to easily find the proper position and to fall rapidly asleep.

If you want to have more information about how sleeping position impact on your health read our dedicated article. Nightingold can help you in creating the best pillow FOR YOU, for your desires, your necessities, the way you sleep or, even better, a pillow that allow you to change your bad sleeping habits.

For any information don’t hesitate to contact us, click our Nightingale!

We are happy to put at your disposal our knowledge.