Occasionally, I think it is interesting to learn little known facts. Tonight, feeling a bit sleepy, I decided that I would Google "quirky facts about sleep". The lists that came up on the various websites seem pretty similar. Following are the ten I thought to be the most interesting.
- Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you're sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you're still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.
- A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year.
- As a group, 18 to 24 year-olds deprived of sleep suffer more from impaired performance than older adults.
- Some studies suggest women need up to an hour's extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.
- British Ministry of Defense researchers have been able to reset soldiers' body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hrs. Tiny optical fibers embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light (with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers' retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up. The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.
- Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.
- The "natural alarm clock" enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.
- Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake. The light turns off a "neural switch" in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.
- Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.
- Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.
And with that, I'm going to call it a night and get a good night's sleep! I hope you take care of yourself too and get the rest you need. Sweet dreams!
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