The importance of sleep

The Counselling and Guidance Unit organised a webinar titled “Relationship between Sleep, Psychology and Potential Scope of Physiotherapy Interventions” on 9 December 2022 via Microsoft Teams. The webinar aimed to share the importance of maintaining quality sleep and disseminate knowledge on the benefits of physiotherapy and exercises to improve the quality of sleep.  

Tarun explaining the concept of sleep

Speaking at the webinar, which was attended by more than 150 participants, was M. Kandiah Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences academic Tarun Amalnerkar, who spoke about the reason for the difficulty in sleeping, elements of quality sleep, stages of sleep, circadian rhythm, hypnogram and sleep cycle, neurological system, consequences of sleep disorders and other related topics.

He said, “People with sleep issues will have psychological problems such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, separation anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc. The three elements of good quality sleep are duration, continuity and depth. The length of sleep should be sufficient for the sleeper to be well rested until the following day, sleep periods should be seamless without fragmentation and sleep should be deep enough to be restorative.”

“The circadian process regulates the daily rhythm of the body and brain. The patterns of activity are found in many organs and even in individual cells. The main circadian pacemaker, our body clock is found in a group of cells in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. The homeostatic or recovery drive to sleep is wake-dependent, that is, it increases in proportion to the amount of time the person has been awake since their last sleep,” added Tarun.