Why can someone sleep eight hours and still wake up tired?
Hours in bed turn out to be a poor measure of rest.
Because you are counting hours, and the body is counting something else.
Melatonin is made in answer to darkness. A lit screen held close to the face in the last hour before bed tells the body the sun has not set, so sleep begins later and lies shallower than the clock will ever admit. You are on a 24-hour rhythm that governs metabolism and mind - not a nightly quota. Eight hours out of step with that rhythm are not the same eight hours.
And there is a second half, which almost nobody joins up: sleep is built at dinner. Tryptophan and magnesium are the raw material from which the brain makes the messengers that settle you. If the plate did not carry them, no amount of willpower at eleven o'clock will.
The yogis said sleep in harmony with nature. It turns out they were describing a circadian rhythm.
What Ancient Yogis Knew About Sleep, and From Plate to Pillow.
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