About 1/3 of our lives are spent sleeping. But, very little is known about it.
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Here are some mind-blowing facts about sleep that might surprise you!
- We sleep in different stages which range from light sleep to deep sleep, with periods of Rapid Eye Movement or REM that most people experience nightly, during which we dream.
- The connection between REM sleep and dreaming was discovered in 1953. It begins about 90 minutes after falling asleep and occurs in bursts about 2 hours a night or 20% of one ‘s sleep time.
- As a matter of fact, it is claimed that several famous people have existed on polyphasic sleep or power naps as we may call them instead of long hours of sleep. These include Leonardo Da Vinci and Winston Churchill.
- Newborn babies can sleep up to almost 21 hours which makes up almost a whole day to sleep!
- Most adults require only 7-9 hours of sleep. And those over 64 need the least of about 6 hours.
- Trains have a “dead man’s handle”, which must be held at all times. If the driver falls asleep and loses grip, the train stops.
- Many inventors came up with anti-snoring gadgets to solve problems of adult snores that we completely detest and makes us want to smother the person next to us with a pillow! These anti- snoring gadgets include mouth or nose devices that alter breathing by blasting the snorers with sound, giving them electric shocks or shaking their beds.
- What causes dreams? They are neither messages from another world, nor do they prophesize anything. Our dreams have something to do with our emotions, fears, wishes, needs, memories. but something outside may have an influence on what we dream. The material you have tonight is likely o spur from the experiences that you have today!
- There are dangerous effects of sleep deprivation. Maureen Weston of St. Peterborough, UK, stayed awake for 449 hours during a rocking marathon in 1977. She suffered from hallucinations but was otherwise unharmed. Extreme sleep deprivation can be dangerous and even lead to death!
Every night we close our eyes and go off to another world- the world of sleep.
When we wake up its as if we’ve come back from another journey, except that we don’t know what really happened to us! But these facts about sleep can surely help us out a little bit, isn’t it?
