We adjust our clock an hour forward, losing an hour of sleep, and many people lament that they just don’t feel right the week after.For one thing, lack of sleep also throws off our circadian rhythm, our internal body clock that orchestrates aspects of health such as mood, metabolism, energy, and hormone release.You have probably already noticed how you feel the week after changing your clocks for daylight savings time in the spring.There are some complexities to this cycle, but we can essentially boil it down that way.Those three stages take about ninety minutes total, and you keep repeating this cycle all night long.One way to recognize each stage is by measuring the amount of electrical activity in the brain.Your brain cells communicate by sending electrical signals to each other.In a normal sleep cycle, your brain wakes up every ninety minutes, even if you’re not aware of it.In fact, knowing that waking up is normal is the first step in getting effective sleep.Where we run into trouble is when we wake up and start thinking about all the things we didn’t do yesterday and what we have to do tomorrow, or we are so stressed about waking up that we can’t get back to sleep.Take several deep breaths and remind yourself your brain simply finished a cycle of sleep and now it’s time for the next cycle.Have you ever tossed and turned trying to sleep in a room that was too warm?Most people find it easier to fall asleep in a cool, rather than warm, room, and there’s a reason for that.To see why, let’s explore your sleep cycle a bit more.The first phase of the sleep cycle, light sleep, lasts about twenty to thirty minutes.During light sleep your brain has significant electrical activity, which is why if you wake up in this phase of the sleep cycle, you will feel most refreshed.Your brain lowers your core body temperature to transition from light sleep to deep sleep.You can also look into lighter or more breathable sheets, blankets, and pajamas.While your brain is being deep cleaned, your body is also repairing itself by rebuilding muscle and bone.If we don’t get effective deep sleep, we age significantly faster.Plus, as we get older, we can get less deep sleep, which can wreak havoc on the brain and immune system.Deep sleep begins to significantly decrease starting around the age of thirty.6 This lack of effective sleep as we age is a key factor in memory and brain and immune issues.Sleep is a secret weapon for your immune system.Researchers wanted to know if people were more likely to get a cold if they didn’t get a good night’s sleep, so they took a group of volunteers and sprayed cold virus in their faces.Those whose periods of deep sleep were interrupted caught significantly more colds.A similar study found sleeping four hours a night carried the greatest risk of catching the common cold.Sleep allows the T cells to activate sticky proteins called integrins. These integrins help T cells attach to these invaders or infected cells and kill them.If the T cells cannot attach and destroy the dangerous pathogens, we are far more likely to become sick.As the connections between your brain cells are currently reminding you, everything you learned is housed in connections between your 80 billion brain cells.When you dream, your brain runs electrical stimulation over those newly made connections.That is why your dreams are often a bizarre mix of things you just learned or experienced and people and things you haven’t thought about in a long time.Why would this happen?It just means they have an elevated risk, and that this is a warning sign that should not be ignored.If you are experiencing any of these sleep abnormalities, it is important to make an appointment with a neurologist.Now, to better understand how you can use sleep to keep your brain and immune system young, let’s take a deeper dive into breakthroughs that can help improve sleep.This cluster of cells, the size of the head of a pin, is one of the most exciting areas of medical research because it’s the master clock for your entire body.For a simple picture of how your brain clock works, take the following scenario.You’re in bed at night and all the lights are off.Your brain clock notices the darkness and causes your brain to release a chemical called melatonin.Melatonin puts your brain to sleep.In darkness, melatonin continues to be released, keeping your brain asleep.Natural light from outside enters through windows and passes through your eyes.This occurs even if your eyelids are closed.The light tells your brain clock to turn off the melatonin.In the absence of melatonin, you wake up.But just as a bad conductor can throw off the rhythm of an orchestra, a malfunctioning brain clock can derail your heartbeat, breath, metabolism, mood, digestion, and sleep.For example, older individuals without memory issues can check into a hospital and check out with memory issues.11 Why?In hospitals, the lights are often on all night long, and patients are frequently disturbed by nurses taking vital signs, or by noise from a roommate or in the hall.These seemingly insignificant disruptions at night, coupled with lack of natural light during the day, wreaks havoc on effective sleep and memory preservation.In today’s world, we have a lot of disruptions in both the fall asleep and wake up phases of sleep.Your brain evolved over millions of years, but it hasn’t changed much in the last ten thousand.The good news is that we can use our brain clocks to overcome the effects of sleep disruptions.Very simple adjustments to return your brain to its natural rhythms of natural light and true darkness can make a big difference for the night better.