Top 5 Things To Know About Sleeping

To have good sleep hygiene and avoid suffering from sleep disorders, we must help our brain! It is he who sends the information and the hormones necessary to promote good sleep or, on the contrary, to completely deconstruct it. Our biological clock can also be easily disturbed: poor sleep hygiene inevitably leads to sleep disorders. Our behavior will help our brain and biological clock work well.

Along with diet and physical activity, sleep forms the other “ingredient” essential to good human health. We spend about a third of our lives on it, but its mechanisms continue to hold mysteries. So, without further ado, let’s dive into this blog and learn some of the things you need to know about sleeping.

1. Energy-saving tactics

To maximize recovery, the sleeping body adopts the strategy of saving energy. Several vital functions like heart rate, breathing, and pulse slow down while we sleep. Body temperature — which varies by about 1.5°C during the day — begins to drop about an hour before the usual bedtime and reaches its lowest level around 4 a.m.

Sleep allows us to rest, but the brain remains very active during this activity. At night, it eliminates the “waste” generated during the day by the central nervous system, which ensures its proper functioning. It also converts short-term memories into long-term memories and erases unnecessary stored information.

2. Ten minutes to fall asleep

For adults, the ideal night lasts between seven and nine hours. However, how long should we take to win the arms of Morpheus? Between 10 and 20 minutes, according to experts. Outside this range, a disorder such as lack of sleep or insomnia could be the cause.

It’s a known fact: children and teenagers need more sleep than their parents. What is less is that sleep needs continue even as we age, once we have become adults. On the other hand, over time, the internal clock changes, advancing the time of getting up as well as that of going to bed.

3. The short nights gene

In 2019, researchers discovered a genetic mutation associated with short sleepers. This feature would allow them to recover more effectively while sleeping and, therefore, to be satisfied with four to six hours of sleep per night while remaining in good health. Only 1 in 4 million people carry such a gene.

Thanks to circadian rhythms, the body alternates between a period of wakefulness and a period of sleep every 24 hours. To take advantage of this natural cycle, experts recommend getting up and going to bed at approximately the same time every day. It is the constancy of rising that would be the most beneficial for sleep.

4. Dream in black and white

In the 1940s, most Americans said they saw little color in their dreams. Today, most people dream in color. Nevertheless, for a handful of people, nighttime fantasies continue to unfold in shades of black and white. What do these people have in common? Having been exposed to black and white television as children.

The received idea is that the frenzy of today’s world has shortened our nights and that, in general, we sleep less than before. However, the data on this subject contradict each other. Some studies report a decrease in sleep, while others observe a slight increase; a situation due in part to the difficulty, for the participants, of correctly estimating the real duration of their nights of sleep.

5. The effects of lack of sleep

In the 1960s, an American teenager managed to stay awake for 11 days, an experience during which he experienced, among other things, mood swings, trouble concentrating, memory loss, and paranoia. Among the effects that appear after only 24 hours without sleep: are irritability, drowsiness, impaired judgment, impaired vision and hearing, and an increased risk of accidents.

Sound off in the comments section below, and tell us what you want to read next and if you want to read more about sleeping.