by interestingfacts.com
About 35 percent of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep a night, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). That’s not enough.
Often we either can’t get to sleep, or we think of sleep as wasted time. What actually goes on while we’re lying there? Why are we designed to do nothing for a third of our lifetimes?
The answer is that our bodies are doing necessary work to keep us going when we’re awake. Scientists still have plenty to learn about how, but what we do know is absolutely fascinating. These interesting facts certainly won’t put you to sleep:
1-There is science behind being a night owl
Night owls have a reputation for being lazy, but many of them might just have drastically different internal clocks than early birds and others. We all have a biological timer called a circadian rhythm that controls, among other things, when we feel awake and when we feel sleepy. It can change at different points in our lives, too.
While the vast majority of people are somewhere in the middle, around 30 percent of people are early-morning or late-night people. It’s not that early birds are more productive or that night owls are lazy; they’re just literally on a different biological schedule. Trying to force either one to conform to a standard human schedule could even have health consequences as a result of chronic sleepiness — although your boss might not accept that as an excuse for coming in late.
2-Babies sleep (a lot) in the womb.
It’s normal for pregnant women to feel punches and kicks as the fetus growing inside them grows bigger, but what are babies doing when they’re not kickboxing?
Because growing brains and bodies is hard work, the vast majority of their time — up to 95 percent of it, even close to term — is spent sleeping.
Babies tend to sleep a lot during the day and be most active in the evening, disturbing plenty of expectant parents just as they’re trying to go to sleep themselves. This could be due to their unique circadian rhythms, or because movement during the day lulls them to sleep. Newborns sleep between 14 and 17 of every 24 hours, although rarely more than a few hours in a row.
3-Snoring can be a sign of sleep apnea
Snoring happens when something blocks or narrows an airway while you’re sleeping, causing vibrations in your throat muscles. Sometimes it’s caused by a sinus infection, a polyp, a cold, or sleep position. It can be relatively benign, but it could also be a sign of obstructive sleep apnea, a condition where people stop breathing periodically while asleep.
This type of apnea is caused by the muscles in the back of the throat relaxing so much that they block your airway. Let your doctor know if you snore, especially if you’re usually sleepy during the day.
4- Smartphones can alter your sleep pattern
Sleep patterns can change for many different reasons, including age, hormones, and work shifts — and it turns out your bedtime Wordle ritual might be a factor too.
Smartphones give off blue light, which, in nature, is more prevalent in the morning. This can keep your brain from producing enough melatonin, a hormone that helps with sleep, which then disrupts your natural circadian rhythm. Other technology that gives off blue light, such as tablets and laptops, can also mess with your sleep.
Some people wear blue-light-blocking glasses to reduce the impact of smartphone use, and while they’re not harmful to wear, the evidence of their actual effectiveness is inconclusive.
5-Going 24 hours without sleeping is like being drunk
While an all-nighter here and there probably isn’t the end of the world, you shouldn’t plan to operate any heavy machinery the next day. Even if you feel fine, you could have delayed reaction times, an inability to focus, and unstable moods — you know, like when you’ve had too much alcohol.
While the effects of sleep deprivation and alcohol vary from person to person, the Centers for Disease Control and others estimate that going 24 hours without any sleep is roughly the equivalent of having a blood alcohol level of 0.1 percent, past the legal limit for driving in the United States.
So if you’re feeling a little woozy after an all-night project, try sleeping it off if you can. Naps probably can’t fix a long-term sleep-deprivation issue, but a quick snooze may restore some alertness.
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