Under which conditions do we sleep the best?
By Fleur, Sofie and Tijmen
You sleep almost half of the day. Sleeping is also very important,
because when you sleep your brain is going to stuff all the
information into your brain cells. Without sleeping we would drive
crazy. Therefore you have to sleep good...
Introduction and problem definition
We are going to research under which conditions you sleep the
best. The problem we want to solve is sleeping problems. Much
pupils and adults have sleeping problems, theyre awake hours a
night. Were going to help by researching how to sleep better. We
use websites with tips and facts how to sleep better. On the
websites they tell you how to sleep better so help to solve the
problems. Our subquestions are pretty simple: Do you sleep well
with ? The dots are for example: music, in the light or dark, etc.
When we have that information we put all the information together
and compare it with each other. Then we come to the answer of the
research question: under which conditions do we sleep the best?
We think that you sleep the best without display, with food, in the
darkness, without music and late (so after 23:00). Thats our
hypothesis.
We did some literature study about our research question. We
looked for articles about sleep it selves, about tips, etc. Just all
about sleeping. This are the articles we found:
Article 1:
As we sleep we go through 5 stages these cycles take an average
of 90-110 minutes:
stage 1: Its a light sleep you can be awakened easily. You move
your eyes slowly, and muscles activity slows. Stage 2: Eye
movement stops and brain waves become slower with only an
occasional burst of rapid brain waves. Stage 3: Extremely slow
brain waves called delta waves are interspersed with smaller faster
waves. Stage 4: The brain produces delta waves almost exclusively
stages 3 and 4 are referred to as deep sleep. Its very difficult to
wake someone from them, there are no eye movement or muscle
activity. In this stage you can experience sleepwalking and night
terrors.
The REM period: The breathing becomes more rapid, irregular and
shallow. Muscles are temporarily paralysed. Also heart rate
increases, blood pressure rises. This is the time when the most
dreams occur and if awoken you can remember the dreams.
Source: http://www.sleepdex.org/stages.htm
Article 2:
The best sleeping conditions are: keep your body temperature
between the 60-72 degrees, so put socks on. Cold feet can
disruptive to sleep. Use weak light, so choose low wattage-lamps.
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Choose the ones with soft and warm on the box. Replace pillows
when they became lumpy or shapeless. So you have to replace
your pillows around every two years. Clean your room/bed. If you
make your bed every morning, its more likely to get a good sleep
next night. Clean your sheets. You will sleep better with a laundered
sheet. Laundered pajamas help too. It helps to have a scent of pure
lavender in your room, it lowers heart rate and blood pressure.
Dont let noice change too much, for example that the sound of the
television goes from low to high, you can wake up from that.
Source: http://www.byrdie.co.uk/things-to-help-you-sleep/slide7
The research design
We did a research which led to the answer on the question: under
which conditions do we sleep the best? So, do you sleep the best
with music, in the darkness, if you have eaten before you went to
bed, if you played on a display before for example. We tested it by
using the Good Morning app. It measures if you sleep deep, light
or if youre awake. We also gave a survey to 20 pupils of the
classes G2A and G2B. The test subjects were: Sofie, Fleur, Tijmen
and 20 pupils from classes G2A and G2B.
First we tested how good the test persons sleep under several
situations. Then collected that information and come to the answer
of the question: Under which circumstances do you sleep the best?
For the results we looked at the stages of your sleep and how long
you sleep.
Our research is repeatable, because the app and everything is easy
to find and to do. We based it on the results and phases. So if you
have the same knowledge, its easy to repeat and its pretty valid
and reliable.
Results
The results of the app
For these we watched to the graphs the app made while we were
sleeping and we compared it to our literature study about the
stages.
Sofie normally sleeps in the darkness, without food, without device,
without music and sometimes she sports before she goes to sleep.
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Sporting also helped at her, she wasnt awake very long, made
enough stages. The graphs show that there was a clear cycle
between light and deep sleeping.
In the light she slept poor, she woke up twice at midnight, slept
much light and made very much stages. Again, try to avoid light in
your room.
If you eat before you go to sleep, you sleep with less stages and a
small amount of light sleeping. But you fell asleep fast.
For her, music helped. There was a clear cycle visible in the graph,
she made an average amount of stages and fell asleep early.
With a device she slept worst, she was awake very much, there was
a small cycle and there were almost no stages.
Fleur sleeps the best under my normal circumstances. For her
thats without any lights, with device, with food and she sometimes
sport before she go to bed, but that is depending on which day it is.
The reason that Fleur sleeps well under these circumstances is
probably, because she always sleeps like this so shes used to
sleep like that.
She also slept well when she listened to music, we think that is
because she liked the music and she kind of got distracted by it.
But when Fleur slept with my lights on she couldnt sleep good at
all, she got irritated by the lights and that made her feel tired the
next day.
When she slept after she trained she felt really good the next day
thats probably because shes tired after a training and Fleur just fell
asleep immediately.
She didnt sleep well when she ate before she went to sleep, her
stomach felt full and she didnt like to sleep like that.
When she used her device before she went to sleep, her eyes
became heavier and when she went to bed her eyes just closed
quickly and she didnt wake up anymore during her sleep session.
Tijmen normally sleeps in the darkness, without music, in the
darkness, without food, with a device before and sometimes he
sports before he goes to sleep.
Sporting helped him too, he made enough stages and slept half an
hour light. A disadvantage is that he woke up twice at midnight.
Avoid light! Also at here, it shows that he slept much lighter with
less stages. And he even woke up again.
With food, he was awake much more and slept much lighter. An
advantage is that there was a clear cycle visible. So, much stages.
With music, he slept was awake a bit more and slept much lighter.
There was a clear cycle visible, thats an advantage.
With a device, he slept very deep. And almost didnt sleep light at all
and made almost no stages. Thats bad.
Graphs
Sofie
With display With music
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 With food With music In the light
Sport

With device With food

In the light Normal

Tijmen Fleur

Normal Sport
Normal Sport

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In the light With food
With device With music
The results of the survey
Almost everybody goes to bed between 21 and 22 oclock. Most
pupils dont eat before they go to bed and they dont have sleeping
problems, so it is better to leave the food alone before you go to
bed. Almost everybody sleeps alone, 1 pupil does sleep with her
sister. Somebody sleeps with his brother for a certain time. Its
better to sleep alone, most people dont have sleeping problems
when they sleep alone. Because when you sleep with someone
else. You will be more restless.
Most pupils that do have sleeping problems, eat later than the
average or earlier than the average. The average is around 6
oclock.
Almost everybody sleeps without music on, they have no sleeping
problems. So its better to sleep without music. Because the pupils
who do listen to music sleep worst.
Its better to sleep in the darkness, everybody sleeps in the
darkness. Its good.
25% of the pupils have sleeping problems.
Conclusion
Sporting helps to sleep better, you make enough periods, clear
cycles, but a bit lighter.
Light is very poor, we made too less periods, slept too light. And we
even woke up twice!
With food, you fall asleep better and make too less periods. Its not
good. (It depends on what you eat.)
If you listen to music in bed, you sleep much lighter, but there is a
clear cycle visible. So its not great but also not poor.
Sleeping with a device or playing on a device before going to sleep
is a bad idea. You make almost no stages, are awake very much.
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Reflection
For this project we had good teamwork, the communication was
good and we could work well together. We also agreed mostly with
each other so there were not so much disagrees.
The only thing was that we didn't plan that well so we came a bit in
a problem with the time. We also had more test persons, but that
didn't really work because when we asked if they had the results for
us they didnt had anything and there was not enough time left to do
it for them. So next time we need to plan better.
Our research would be more reliable when we had tested more
persons and had more time to this.

We really liked working on this project together. We learned much

from it and it was fun to do.