Dr Stephen Juan - Odd News

Why Do We Sleep?
We spend one third of our life doing it, but science is puzzled about why. You might think the answer is obvious. We sleep to recharge our batteries. But research suggests it's not that simple. The medical literature reveals dozens of cases of people who hardly ever sleep, yet they are perfectly healthy. Indeed, often they're healthier than most of those who sleep the normal eight hours per night. A few years ago, British researchers reported a case of a 70-year-old woman who slept an average of one hour per day without any naps. She once stayed awake for 56 hours straight — and then only slept an hour and a half. She felt fine and functioned normally. And, of course there's the most famous self-imposed insomniac of all time: Leonardo da Vinci. He slept only 15 minutes every four hours around the clock. So why do the rest of us spend 8 hours a day sleeping? And if we don't get our proper dose of sleep, why are we so cranky and out-of-sorts?

Here are a few theories:

Sleep keeps us out of danger.
Early humans needed protection from night-time predators, most of whom hunted at night. Sleep reduces the boredom while hiding in caves from predators.
Sleep helps us save energy.
Sleeping part of the day allowed early humans to get by on less food. When we sleep, our body temperature drops a few degrees and we burn up less energy. This means that we don't have to eat as much. In prehistoric times, scarcity of food and starvation were always a possibility.
Sleep gives our body time to recover from the stress of every day life.
By the time night arrives, our brain needs a break. Some scientists believe that during sleep our body is repaired. The brain repairs brain cells and makes more of the brain chemicals needed for brain activity during consciousness.
Sleep helps memory.
Sleep gives our brain time to sort out the sensory input of conscious activity and classify this information into our memory.
Sleeps helps us forget.
Some scientists claim that sleep helps our brain "unlearn" things. This is essential so that the brain doesn't become over-crowed with unnecessary information.
Sleep allows us to dream.
We dream only during REM sleep (rapid-eye-movement sleep). If we didn't sleep, we couldn't dream. Although most of us assume the reverse, some scientists argue that our conscious hours are really only preparation for our unconscious hours. After all, what we do in our dreams is often far more fascinating than what we do when awake. If total freedom is the ultimate human desire, and if dreaming is when we can be the most free, then dreaming is the most desirable human state.

Other Sleep Trivia

Those suffering from the rare condition of chronic colestites experience total insomnia. This stops them from getting any sleep at all. The medical literature shows that some patients have gone without sleep for five years or more. Insomnia strikes the elderly more so than any other group.

Some scientists claim that people who sleep less than six hours per day are more organized and efficient than those who sleep six hours or more per day.

Research shows that what you learn just before going to sleep you remember better than what you learn at other times.

Depriving someone of sleep has been used as a particularly cruel form of torture. People deprived of sleep in this way eventually go mad. They first become cross, irritable, clumsy, and forgetful. They then experience hallucinations.

If you are average, you've slept about 2,555 hours in the past year. Surveys show that, if typical, it takes you seven minutes to doze off at night.

Medical researchers have found that sleeping on your right side improves digestion.

On a typical night, it takes the typical person approximately seven minutes to fall asleep.

The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you'll have a bad dream.

Gorillas and cats sleep about 14 hours a day.

A study by researcher Frank Hu and the Harvard University School of Public Health found that women who snore are at an increased risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

You'll probably spend one-third of your life asleep and a total of about six years dreaming — even if you can't remember a single dream.

You can live without food longer than you can live without sleep. You can go without food for several weeks. But after 10 days without any form of sleep including catnaps, you'll die.

The average person has five dreams a night, each longer than the last. The first goes on for about 10 minutes, the last for about 45 minutes.

About 25 per cent of all children sleepwalk at least once between ages 7 and 12.

Oxford University researchers advise you not count sheep in order to fall asleep. Instead, they suggest you picture pleasant green meadows sheep graze in. It was found that people who dream of the meadow fall asleep faster than people who dream of the sheep.