REM

• We’re off somewhere different – perhaps a holiday, maybe to catch up with friends or family.
• But by its very definition, a long-haul flight involves travelling for a long period of time, often more than 12 hours.
• If you’re on a flight from New York to Singapore, it can be close to 19 hours.

Accept the situation

• Humans are just not well designed to sleep in an almost upright position.
• This, plus findings from many other lab-based studies, tells us that even a short amount of light sleep has benefits.
• Also, we’re not great at judging how much sleep we’ve had, particularly if our sleep is light and broken.

Time your sleep and drinks

• Assuming you’re adjusted to the time zone the flight departs from, daytime flights will make sleep on board much harder, whereas nighttime flights make sleep easier.
• All humans have a circadian (24-hour) time-keeping system, which programs us for sleep at night and wakefulness during the day.
• On the other hand, alcohol makes us feel sleepy, but it interferes with our brains’ ability to have REM sleep (also known as dreaming sleep).

What about taking melatonin or other drugs?

• Some people find taking a sleeping tablet or melatonin can help on a plane.
• Before taking sleeping medication or melatonin you should see your doctor, and only take what’s prescribed for you.
• Taking melatonin in your biological afternoon and evening will shift your circadian time-keeping system east (or earlier) and taking it toward the end of your biological night and in your biological morning will shift the circadian time-keeping system west (or later).

Prepare your clothes and accessories

• Be prepared so you can create the best possible sleep situation within the constraints of an aircraft seat.
• Light and noise disturb sleep, so pack eye shades and earplugs (or a noise cancelling headset) to block these out.
• Practice with eye shades and earplugs at home, as it can take a few sleeps to get used to them.

Don’t try to force it

• When you feel sleepy, you can try going back to sleep, but don’t get stressed or worried about getting enough sleep.
• Our brains are very good at sleeping – trust that your body will catch you up when it can.

• Keeping summer sleep schedules and routines similar year-round can make the back-to-school transition that much smoother.
• Keeping kids from repeatedly hitting the snooze alarm keeps their body on time, McKenzie said.
• "You've now set yourself backwards, whereas if you woke up with that first alarm your body is ready to go.
• Just the thought of returning to school might leave kids feeling anxious as the summer days dwindle.

• Once completed, the fully automated and electric REM will reduce GHG emissions by 100,000 tonnes per year.
• "The REM will transform the way people get around the Greater Montréal area.
• Our teams are ready to welcome users so that they'll have the best experience possible and to encourage them to adopt this modern, 100% electric mode of transportation."
• "The launch of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) clearly shows how the electrification of transportation is not only about individual electric vehicles.

• However, we often sleep less than we need.
• Needing less sleep is a consequence of our ancestors’ choices to remain awake longer — a behaviour that led to evolutionary benefits.

Less sleep needed: An ancestral gift

• Humans are outliers, however, needing sleep for only seven hours, far less than the predicted 9.55 hours of sleep for a primate with similar traits to ours.
• This ancestral choice to sleep less was worthwhile (although some speculate that it may also have had drawbacks).

Less sleep available: A modern misery

• We forgo sleep to pull an all-nighter in preparation for an exam or a meeting, binge-watch TV shows, conform to the sleeplessness trend of the modern culture or scroll through social media.
• Sleep is not a luxury for people who must face sleep disorders, socioeconomic sleep disparity, new parenthood or work obligations of pilots, health-care workers and others with irregular hours.
• Today it is the lack of sleep that is costly because sleep is essential.
• Sleep research pioneer Allan Rechtschaffen noted, “If sleep doesn’t serve an absolutely vital function, it is the biggest mistake the evolutionary process has ever made.”

Countermeasures against sleep deprivation

• Today, getting even an hour or two of extra sleep is challenging.
• But until policies change, how can we better cope with sleep loss?

Protective power of fitness

• Fitness was measured as the ability of the participants’ heart and lungs to supply oxygen and their muscles’ ability to use it while exercising.
• This is referred to as cardiorespiratory fitness, as opposed to muscular fitness.
• A higher VO₂peak indicates better fitness.
• Research has shown that people with higher cardiorespiratory fitness tend to have better brain connectivity and cognition.

Exercise caution

• Other healthy habits of fitter participants such as good sleep hygiene, higher cognitive reserve and healthy diet may have contributed to their better memory performance despite sleep loss.
• However, animal research has shown that aerobic exercise training — which increases cardiorespiratory fitness — can protect against the detriments of sleep deprivation.