Interesting facts about the night. Sleep: interesting facts

How the brain works is extremely complex and largely unexplored. This is confirmed by the features of mental and physiological processes that manifest themselves when a person sleeps. Let's talk about some of them.

Source: depositphotos.com

Scientists have found that in the first five minutes after waking up, half of the content of the dream disappears from memory, and in the next five minutes - another 40% of the information. The physiological meaning of this process has not been established. But almost everyone knows about the cases of memorizing the remaining 10%: they include the image of Frankenstein that Mary Shelley dreamed of, the periodic table of D. I. Mendeleev and a number of well-known scientific discoveries and artistic achievements.

The content of sleep can be influenced by the environment in which the sleeper is located.

Most people are also familiar with the phenomenon of merging reality and dreams. It appears when external factors as if built into the fabric of dreams. This role can be played by sounds, smells, air vibrations and changes in its temperature, even features physical condition sleeping. For example, if the body needs to replenish fluid reserves, a person sees himself in a dream looking for a spring, drinking water etc. Similarly, a hungry person sees food in a dream and eats it. Interestingly, in this case, the feeling of thirst or hunger disappears for a while, then returns and the episode of satisfying desires is repeated with the same result.

Blind people also dream

People suffering from acquired blindness see the same dreams as sighted people. If blindness is congenital, dreams are also there. They are based on other senses (olfactory, tactile, auditory), but can be very rich and emotional.

The content of dreams depends on gender and age

A mentally healthy person usually dreams about himself (something like films with himself in the lead role). Such dreams appear in a child from the age of three (the smallest do not see themselves in a dream). Children very often have nightmares, but by the age of seven or eight this feature, as a rule, disappears.

Representatives of the stronger sex see dreams mainly with the participation of men. In women's dreams, women and men appear equally often.

Dreamless sleep is bad for mental health

The complete absence of dreams is an alarming sign. It has been established that severe mental disorders manifest themselves in this way.

Another fact has been experimentally confirmed: if a person fails to experience the phase of REM sleep, during which dreams come, for two or three days, he becomes distracted, irritable, and aggressive. As the study continued, the subjects developed hallucinations and other signs of a mental disorder. At the same time, the total duration of a night's sleep was quite sufficient for a good rest. In addition, scientists noticed that the brains of people who were given back the ability to dream normally began to make up for lost impressions: the subjects saw extremely vivid and meaningful dreams for several days after the end of the experiment, the duration of which was much longer than normal.

Dreams are not always in color

There is an opinion that color dreams indicate the presence of mental disorders. This is not true. Most people see about 88% of their dreams in color. Moreover, the content of the dream is in no way connected with its color perception.

The events and people we see in a dream are partly familiar to us.

During sleep, the brain continues to process sensations and emotions experienced in reality, creating bizarre combinations of familiar situations and images. Therefore, the belief that we see strangers in a dream is not based on anything. Every face that appeared before a person in a dream was at least glimpsed by him in reality.

In life, different people often find themselves in similar situations and that is why they can see dreams of the same content. Most often there are dreams in which we are in a hurry somewhere, we are late, we ride in transport, we pass exams, we catch up with someone (or run away).

1. Fact about sleep - We are paralyzed during sleep.
Believe it or not, our body is practically paralyzed during sleep, mainly to prevent the body from repeating the movements that occur during sleep.

2. Fact about sleep - External stimuli affect our dreams
Each of us has experienced this at least once: the subconscious mind makes the physical sensation that we are experiencing at the moment part of the dream. For people who are thirsty, the subconscious “throws” the image of glasses of water. They try to get drunk (in a dream, of course), get thirsty again, see a glass of water again, and so on - until they wake up and realize that they are really thirsty and get drunk already in the real world. Thus, the subconscious “tells” that you need to wake up.
3. Sleep Fact - Ex-smokers have more vivid dreams.
Ex-smokers have more intense and real dreams than anyone else. Most often, they dream that they have started smoking again and feel guilty about it.

4. Fact about sleep - Dreams are not literal
Our subconscious uses the language of signs and symbols. Therefore, you should not take every dream, even with the most logical and rich plot, literally. The subconscious sends us signals, not clear images.
5. Fact about sleep - Not everyone can dream in color
About 12% of sighted people see only black and white dreams. Others dream in color. There are several typical groups of dreams that everyone sees without exception: situations at school or at work, an attempt to escape from persecution, falling from a height, the death of a person, teeth falling out, flying, failing exams, accidents, etc.
6. Dream Fact - We only dream about what we saw.
In our dreams we often see strangers, but we have no idea that our consciousness does not invent their faces. These are the faces of real people, those whom we saw during our lives, but did not remember.
7. Sleep Fact - Dreams Prevent Psychosis
Recently, scientists conducted an experiment: the subjects were allowed to sleep for the prescribed 8 hours, but were awakened in the initial phase of each sleep. Three days later, all participants in the experiment, without exception, had difficulty concentrating, hallucinations, inexplicable irritability, and the first signs of psychosis. When the subjects were finally given the opportunity to dream, the scientists noticed that the brain compensates for the absence of dreams in the previous days by spending longer than usual in REM sleep.
8. Fact about sleep - Dreams are seen by everyone without exception

All people (with the exception of patients with a severe mental disorder) dream, but men and women dream differently. Men mostly dream of their own gender, while women dream of both sexes in about the same proportion.
9. Fact about sleep - We forget 90% of dreams
Five minutes after waking up, we no longer remember even half of our dreams, and after ten minutes we can hardly remember 10% of them. There are cases when poets, writers, scientists had dreams in which they composed poetry, prose or came up with a new scientific theory. Lucky for those who guessed to leave a pen and paper at the head of the bed. It is dreams that owe their birth to Samuel Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan", the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as well as the famous Periodic Table of Elements, also known as the Periodic Table.
10. Fact about sleep - Blind people "see" dreams
People who are blind after birth can dream in the form of pictures. The blind from birth do not see pictures, but their dreams are filled with sounds, smells and tactile sensations.
More facts about dreams:
1. A person does not dream at the moment when he snores.
2. Young children do not dream of themselves until they are 3 years old. From 3 to 8 years old, children have more nightmares than adults in their entire lives.
3. If you are awakened during REM sleep, you will remember your dream to the smallest detail.
Human sleep is one of those strange and mysterious states about which science knows almost nothing. Why do we see places and people we have never seen? Why do events occur in a dream that we were not participants in? Why do we dream about what we never thought about? I want to bring to your attention 38 facts about sleep that you may know, and most likely, some of them will be a discovery for you.

The longest awake period, 18 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes, was recorded during the competition for the longest sitting on a rocking chair (sic!). The winner escaped with hallucinations, visual impairment, speech disorders and memory lapses.

It is impossible to determine whether a person is sleeping without medical examination. People often fall asleep for a few seconds open eyes without even noticing it.

If you fall asleep in less than 5 minutes in the evening, you have a lack of sleep. The ideal time for a person to fall asleep in the evening is from 10 to 15 minutes. This time means that you are tired enough to sleep soundly at night, and at the same time do not feel sleepy during the day.

The birth of a child means an average of 400-750 hours of sleep lost for the parents in the first year.

You are more likely to develop insomnia later in life if you abuse bad habits instead of sleep, awakened by your child.

Long-term studies of human sleep, which led to the discovery of the so-called. the "rapid phase" was not carried out until 1953 due to the large paper consumption of such studies.

REM sleep occurs in impulses throughout the night, up to 2 hours in total, starting on average at the 90th minute of sleep.

Dreams that were previously thought to occur only in REM sleep also occur in other phases. It is possible that a person sees dreams at any moment of sleep, but does not realize or remember them.

Dreams in the fast phase are usually strange and illogical, while in the slow phase they are repetitive and more like brooding with a bit of fantasy - for example, the constant memory that you forgot something.

Certain patterns of eye movement during the REM phase correspond to certain movements in our dreams, suggesting that part of our brain is watching the dream from the side, like a movie.

No one knows if animals dream, but sleep phases have also been found in them.

Elephants sleep standing up during the slow sleep phase, and lie down on the ground during the REM sleep phase.

Some scientists believe that we dream in order to fix the day's experiences in long-term memory. Thus, we see dreams in order to remember important information for ourselves. Others believe that we dream about things and events that we do not need in order to clear the brain of unnecessary memories and duplicates.

A dream may not carry any payload, but is simply a by-product of consciousness and sleep.

REM sleep can help develop a healthy brain. Children born ahead of time, 75% of sleep is spent in the REM phase, and their healthy brothers - only 60%. Similarly, newborn rat pups and hamsters sleep entirely in REM sleep, while newborn piglets (who are more developed from birth) do not have REM sleep at all.

Scientists can't explain a 1988 study that showed that shining a spot of bright light on the surface behind the knee caused the sleep rhythm and body clock to go wrong.

The British Ministry of Defense has come up with a way to adjust the biological clock of soldiers so that they stay awake for up to 36 hours. To do this, tiny light emitters were mounted in glasses in such a way that they illuminate the edges of the retina with light close to the sun. The soldier thus had a constant feeling early morning. Such a system was first used by American military pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.

Staying awake for 17 hours uninterruptedly reduces productivity and impairs attention, as if you had 0.05% alcohol in your blood.

The 1988 Exxon Valdez tanker disaster, the Challenger shuttle accident, and the Chernobyl disaster were caused by human factors, which depend not least on the level of sleepiness.

International studies have shown that at least 20% of car accidents are due to fatigue and lack of sleep.

Sleeping in a noisy environment can reduce a person's immune response even if they are not woken up by the noise. Especially dangerous noise in the first and two last hours sleep, it can cause complete breakdown sleep patterns and a person's natural clock.

Independent sudden awakening is caused by the release of the hormone adrenocorticotropin into the blood.

Some sleeping pills, in particular, barbiturates, suppress the stage of REM sleep, which causes long-term disturbance of the psyche and sleep patterns.

The use of sleeping pills is justified from a psychological point of view only if insomnia is caused by a sense of bereavement or severe stress.

Slight light from digital electronic clock enough to disrupt sleep even if you don't realize it and continue to sleep. This light "turns off" the sleep mode in the brain and causes a decrease in the concentration of substances that stimulate sleep.

To sleep well, you need a cool place. Body temperature and sleep cycles are directly related. That's why it's hot summer night we have difficulty falling asleep and sleep little. The blood supply to the brain works best at temperatures environment 18-30 degrees. With age, this range narrows to 23-25 degrees - this is one of the reasons why older people are more likely to experience sleep disorders.

If you drink a little grog (hot strong drink) before going to bed, it will help you fall asleep, but the sleep will be superficial and the healing effect of it will be negligible.

After five nights bad sleep, a glass of alcohol will act on you with such force as 2 glasses if you had a good night's sleep.

A person sleeps 3 hours less than his closest animal relatives - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans. These primates sleep at least 10 hours a day.

Ducks in the presence of danger are able to sleep with one half of the brain, while the other vigilantly monitors the surroundings.

Ten percent of people who snore have a sleep disorder called apnorea. With this disease, a person a short time stops breathing about 300 times a night, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

A person only snores during slow-wave sleep.

Teenagers need sleep just like small children; about 10 hours a day. Older people need 6 hours of sleep. For a middle-aged person, the optimal duration of sleep is 8 hours.

Some studies show that women need an extra hour of sleep compared to men due to their tendency to depression and psychosis.

Records from the Victorian era show that people slept an average of 10 hours per night, with the sleep schedule shifting depending on the daylight hours.

Most of the information about the state of sleep scientists have learned in the last 25 years.

Sleepy young people are less productive than older people.

Many experts point out that one of the main causes of sleep disorders is round-the-clock Internet access.

I wish you good sleep, productive wakefulness and be healthy!

Dear friends, today I propose to talk about the side of life to which we unconsciously give a third of our being. 22 interesting facts about sleep: do we really sleep, how much sleep do we need for longevity, salvation from insanity, etc. - in the article.

1. Our body never sleeps.

While we are resting in a night's sleep, the body continues to work: it prepares us for wakefulness during the day, establishing biological rhythms, immune, metabolic, mental and brain processes.

Previously, it was believed that our consciousness falls asleep, but then who sends us a hint: “It's just a dream, don't be afraid!” If we have nightmares?

2. In sleep we can learn

The phenomenon, called by scientists "hypnopedia", has come down to us from time immemorial.

According to historians, hypnopedia was practiced by the ancient Indians. Buddhist monks whispering texts of manuscripts.

3. We remember about ourselves even what we don’t know about

Any impressions, including unconscious ones, fall into short-term memory (hippocampus).

This kind of staging post of the brain has a limited space, and therefore in the evenings we have a reduced speed of thinking and concentration. The hippocampus, like a crowded warehouse, needs to be put in order.

Falling asleep and disconnecting from external stimuli, we give the brain the opportunity to process the accumulated information and send it to long-term (unconscious) memory with unlimited volume for storage.

Here, all data is stored for life, thanks to which, in critical situations or under hypnosis, we can remember any event to the smallest detail, the knowledge of which we do not suspect.

Natural awakening occurs only after all the information has been processed and space in the hippocampus is freed up for new experiences.

For such an important job the brain needs us to sleep at night and not interfere with it for at least 6 hours, say American scientists Matthew Walker and Bryce Mander.

That is why, we see such interesting dreams in the morning, the brain in this way keeps us in the arms of Morpheus.

If the process is not completed, and we woke up, sleep does not bring rest to the mind, clarity of thought and sharpness of attention..

4 Short Sleeping Geniuses

According to statistics, most people need 8-9 hours for a good rest, but there are many famous people who slept less:

Julius Caesar - 3 hours,

Da Vinci - a total of 2 hours (sleep 15-20 minutes every four hours),

Benjamin Franklin - 4 hours,

Napoleon - 4 hours, and in his declining years in exile from a lark he turned into a sleeping owl.

Edison - slept 5 hours at night, pampered himself with siesta during the day.

Tesla - about 3 hours, but from time to time he slept enough.

Churchill - 5 hours and a mandatory daytime sleep.

Margaret Thatcher - about 5 hours. The "Iron Lady" lived for work and willingly sacrificed sleep even for a haircut.

5. Albert Einstein was one of the long sleepers.

He allowed himself to sleep for more than 10 hours and did not hide the fact that he made many discoveries in his sleep.

6. Blue light delays falling asleep by 3 hours

If you tend to fall asleep at a certain time, break away from PC monitors and TV screens at least an hour before bedtime.

In their radiation, as well as energy-saving and LED lamps, there is a lot of blue spectrum, which suppresses the production of melatonin, a natural sleeping pill.

7. Orange (amber) lenses will help you fall asleep and sleep better

They block blue light rays that interfere with melatonin synthesis. Somnologists advise wearing "amber" glasses about three hours before bedtime.

8. Sleep decreased by 1.5 hours in 100 years

We sleep 20% less than our ancestors in the 19th century. The beginning of the involution of sleep was the "Yablochkov candle" and Edison's electric light bulb.

9. Lethargy - "escape" from the cruel world and salvation from madness

The oldest genetic reaction saves the human psyche from destruction by severe stress.

16. Excessive sleep, longer than 8 hours threatens

overweight,
diabetes
depression
headaches,
heart disease.

17. People who sleep no more than 8 hours,

live 15% longer.

18. Older smokers have a harder time falling asleep.:

nicotine stimulates the psyche, increasing the level of stress adrenaline and norepinephrine - stress hormones.

19. The pose of a person in a dream is a true portrait of his personality.,

reflecting character, state of mind and health, attitude to the world and to oneself.

20. Holidays dedicated to the phenomenon of sleep

The first holiday appeared in 1652 in Finland. Reverend Hemming dedicated him to the feat.

Subsequently, it turned into a fun action called Sony Day, its motto:

“Don’t oversleep your life, otherwise, waking up one day, you won’t recognize the world like the seven holy youths.”

World Sleep Day established the International Sleep Medicine Association in 2008.

Its goal is to draw public attention to the global decline in health due to the poor quality of sleep of a modern person.

21. Sleep deprivation can cause hallucinations. sleepy or active. So if you're denying yourself enough sleep, don't be surprised if you hear, see, feel, or smell something strange and frightening.

22. Sleeping too little can lead to parasomnias.- sleep disorders in which people behave abnormally in their sleep: walking, screaming, fighting, eating strange foods, driving cars, beating or strangling bed partners.

Summary

Our mental and physical health, long youth, active old age - everything originates at night when we sleep.

Or rather, we don’t sleep at all, because our soul does not fall asleep, but continues to communicate with us through dreams, the body works in a different mode, and the brain sorts everything that we thought about, that we saw and heard voluntarily or involuntarily.

Sleep facts are stubborn: today's poor-quality sleep will turn decades later overweight, brain problems, diabetes or other problems.

So how much sleep do you really need to live long and active? Sleep experts recommend sleeping at least 7.5 to 8 hours.

Focus on your well-being. If drowsiness and fatigue are present, it means that you are not getting enough sleep or that your sleep structure is disturbed due to snoring, occasional leg movements, or other disorders.

Take care of yourself. Have a healthy sleep!

Sources: US National Library of Medicine, A. Borbeli "The Secret of Sleep", A. Wayne "Three Thirds of Life"

Elena Valve for the Sleepy Cantata project

Only those born blind do not dream. Their dreams are limited to smell, sound, touch, emotion and taste. Blind after birth, like everyone else, they dream.

In a dream, we see the faces of only those people whom we saw in life. We may not know or remember them, but we have already seen them.

Within five minutes after waking up, a person can remember about half of what he saw in a dream. Then - only a tenth.

About 12% of people see exclusively black and white dreams. Among those under 25, the percentage is even lower at 4.4%.

The number of those who see color dreams is growing every day. Scientists believe that this is due to the transition from black and white to color television.

Dreams are symbolic. If you persistently dream about something, in a dream you will definitely be given a sign.

Most often, dreams show negative rather than positive emotions.

The most popular emotional state in dreams is anxiety.

Chaotic (at first glance) eye movement during sleep takes us about a quarter of the total sleep time.

External factors can influence our dreams. For example, the singing of a neighbor behind the wall can move you in a dream to a concert hall.

Men see about 70% of men in dreams, while in women the proportion of "men-women" is approximately equal.

Almost 2/3 of people have experienced deja vu based on dreams.

Animals also dream.

Our body never sleeps

While we are resting in a night's sleep, the body continues to work: it prepares us for wakefulness during the day, establishing biological rhythms, immune, metabolic, mental and brain processes.

Previously, it was believed that our consciousness falls asleep, but then who sends us a hint: “It's just a dream, don't be afraid!” If we have nightmares?

In a dream we can learn

The phenomenon, called by scientists "hypnopedia", has come down to us from time immemorial.

According to historians, hypnopedia was practiced by ancient Indian Buddhist monks, whispering the texts of manuscripts to sleeping students.

We remember about ourselves even what we don’t know

Any impressions, including unconscious ones, fall into short-term memory (hippocampus).

Here, all data is stored for life, thanks to which, in critical situations or under hypnosis, we can remember any event to the smallest detail, the knowledge of which we do not suspect.

Natural awakening occurs only after all the information has been processed and space in the hippocampus is freed up for new experiences.

For such an important job the brain needs us to sleep at night and not interfere with it for at least 6 hours, say American scientists Matthew Walker and Bryce Mander.

That is why, we see such interesting dreams in the morning, the brain in this way keeps us in the arms of Morpheus.

If the process is not completed, and we woke up, sleep does not bring rest to the mind, clarity of thought and sharpness of attention..

Short-sleeping geniuses

According to statistics, most people need 8-9 hours for a good rest, but there are quite a few famous personalities who slept less:

Julius Caesar - 3 hours,

Da Vinci - a total of 2 hours (sleep 15-20 minutes every four hours),

Benjamin Franklin - 4 hours,

Napoleon - 4 hours, and in his declining years in exile from a lark he turned into a sleeping owl.

Edison - slept 5 hours at night, pampered himself with siesta during the day.

Tesla - about 3 hours, but from time to time he slept enough.

Churchill - 5 hours and a mandatory daytime sleep.

Margaret Thatcher - about 5 hours. The "Iron Lady" lived for work and willingly sacrificed sleep even for a haircut.

Albert Einstein was a long sleeper

He allowed himself to sleep for more than 10 hours and did not hide the fact that he made many discoveries in his sleep.

Blue light delays sleep by 3 hours

If you tend to fall asleep at a certain time, break away from PC monitors and TV screens at least an hour before bedtime.

In their radiation, as well as energy-saving and LED lamps, there is a lot of blue spectrum, which suppresses the production of melatonin, a natural sleeping pill.

Orange (amber) glasses glasses will help you fall asleep and sleep better

They block blue light rays that interfere with melatonin synthesis. Somnologists advise wearing "amber" glasses about three hours before bedtime.

Sleep decreased by 1.5 hours in 100 years

We sleep 20% less than our ancestors in the 19th century. The beginning of the involution of sleep was the "Yablochkov candle" and Edison's electric light bulb.

Lethargy - "escape" from the cruel world and salvation from madness

The oldest genetic reaction saves the human psyche from destruction by severe stress.

A person suddenly falls asleep for several hours, decades, or centuries, according to the story of the youths of Ephesus.

Sleep - gymnastics for the eyes

eyeballs healthy person make up to 1500 movements per night under the eyelids.

So our oculomotor system maintains the tone of deep vision so that during the day the world does not double before our eyes, says Ralph Berger from the University of Edinburgh.

Sleep is a powerful defense

from cancer: Stanford scientists found that sleep deprivation reduces the production of the main cancer-fighting hormones - cortisol and melatonin, which are most actively produced at night during sleep.

Women are especially at risk. If they don't get enough sleep, cancer-causing estrogen is high and melatonin, which reduces estrogen synthesis, is low.

From diabetes. A qualitative study was conducted in England: men aged 18-27 had night sleep no more than 4 hours.

Outcome: imbalance of the hormonal system, glucose is increased, natural insulin is below the norm by 30%. People with the initial stage of diabetes have similar tests.

For longevity, women need

sleep at least 6.5 - 7.5 hours, Daniel Kripke found out with a group of American specialists during a 14-year experiment involving 500 representatives of the fairer sex.

Insomnia is tortured and treated

Insomnia torture- one of the most cruel in the history of mankind, has been used since prehistoric times. There are known cases of executions by insomnia.

Treatment for insomnia depression has been practiced since 1966, when Walter Schulte, a Swiss psychiatrist, discovered healing effect sleep deprivation.

Insomnia is compared to electroshock therapy: in a short time, patients come out of the deepest depression and restore sleep.

No sleep 11 days

or 264 hours spent by an American of 17 years, Randy Gardner. The record was recorded by the Guinness Book in 1965, after which its representatives announced the termination of the registration of records that threaten health.

However, this did not stop lovers to mock themselves: in 2007, the Englishman Wright Tony was able to stay awake for 275 hours. What turned out his wakefulness for the body, it is not difficult to guess.

Insufficient sleep

shortens life.

Sleep deprivation is one of the most important factors premature aging. So thought Tokuiro Namikoshi, the creator of Japanese shiatsu therapy.

This fact is confirmed by numerous scientific evidence. By the way, Namikoshi lived for 95 years.

Bad for the brain.

In the body, with lack of sleep, the level of stress hormones increases, inhibiting the rate of cell renewal in the brain.

Leads to obesity:

proved a large-scale 20-year experiment conducted by American scientists. It began in 1982 and reached 39,000 Americans aged 32 to 49.

Bottom line: Participants who slept less than 7 hours were more likely to be overweight and obese two decades later. It's all about the imbalance of digestive hormones:

ghrelin, which controls appetite and energy expenditure,
leptin (satiation hormone). With insufficient sleep, leptin levels drop by 20%, and we experience a feeling of false hunger.

Excessive sleep, longer than 8 hours threatens

overweight,
diabetes
depression
headaches,
heart disease.

People sleeping less than 8 hours,

live 15% longer.

Older smokers find it harder to fall asleep:

nicotine stimulates the psyche, increasing the level of stress adrenaline and norepinephrine - stress hormones.

The pose of a person in a dream is a true portrait of his personality,

reflecting character, state of mind and health, attitude to the world and to oneself.

Holidays dedicated to the phenomenon of sleep

The first holiday appeared in 1652 in Finland. Reverend Hemming dedicated it to the exploits of the youths of Ephesus.

Subsequently, it turned into a fun action called Sony Day, its motto:

“Don’t oversleep your life, otherwise, waking up one day, you won’t recognize the world like the seven holy youths.”

World Sleep Day established the International Sleep Medicine Association in 2008.

Its goal is to draw public attention to the global decline in health due to the poor quality of sleep of a modern person.

Summary

Our mental and physical health, long youth, active old age - everything originates at night when we sleep.

Sleep facts are stubborn: today's poor-quality sleep will turn decades later overweight, brain problems, diabetes or other problems.

So how much sleep do you really need to live long and active? Sleep experts recommend sleeping at least 7.5 to 8 hours.

Focus on your well-being. If drowsiness and fatigue are present, it means that you are not getting enough sleep or that your sleep structure is disturbed due to snoring, bruxism, periodic leg movements, or other disorders.

Why can you wake up from your own scream

Night terrors are sleep disturbances associated with abnormal physical movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions, and dreams. It's easy to confuse with a nightmare, but the only similarity is that both occur during sleep.

With night terrors, people are unaware of what is happening to them. The main difference between a night terror and a nightmare is that in the first case, a person partially wakes up, and in the second, he continues to sleep. In addition, they occur in different phases of sleep. Most often, fears occur between midnight and two in the morning, as well as during daytime sleep.

During a night terror attack, the person suddenly straightens up and starts screaming, often something quite meaningful like: “They will kill me!” The face of the sleeper is distorted with rage, or the person seems to be protecting himself from an invisible threat, or is afraid of something like worms in the bed. The heartbeat is quickened, sweat appears on the body, the pupils are dilated. This condition can last from ten to twenty minutes, and if the condition is chronic, then attacks can occur up to 16 times per night.

A distinctive feature of night fear is that it is impossible to influence a person. In fact, it is even dangerous to interfere - a person is uncontrollable. Most people have absolutely no memory of the nighttime incident in the morning. The only good thing is that they then easily fall asleep - unlike a nightmare.

Most often, boys from five to seven years old suffer from night fears, but girls are also susceptible to this, although less often - according to statistics, about 17% of young children experience night fears. As a rule, as you grow older, night terrors occur less often, and then completely disappear.

But in addition to age, there are other factors - the cause of night terror can be emotional stress, stress, fatigue or conflict. Also, the cause may be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or sleepwalking.

Psychotherapy helps with night fears - the point is that life stresses should be reduced to a minimum.

You don't have to sleep a lot - just believing that you got a good night's sleep is enough

A new study suggests there's a placebo effect of sleep: simply believing you've gotten enough sleep is enough to keep you productive and energized throughout the day. This technique will work especially well if people are told that they slept well by some reputable psychologist or doctor.

The experiment was carried out on a group of senior students. The students were briefed in lectures about the nature of sleep and then hooked up to equipment supposed to give researchers information about the quality of their sleep the previous night (in fact, the equipment simply measured brain frequencies). Then one of the experimenters allegedly calculated the ratio of how well the students slept. Those who were told they slept well performed better and faster than those who were told they slept poorly.

Of course, if students stop sleeping at all, this technique will not work. The effect is rather similar to another effect already familiar to us: if a person is told that he will cope with the task, then he will probably really cope with it, and if you set him up in advance for failure, then the probability of failure will increase.

Only 3% of people are able to feel normal if they sleep no more than 6 hours a day

Sleep is a purely individual thing, so the time of sleep during which a person gets enough sleep also depends on the person. There are two factors that affect sleep time: according to research by scientists from the Harvard School of Medicine, these are age and genetics.

Genetics influence not only how much sleep you need, but also sleep patterns and wake-up times, as well as your preferences for performing certain tasks at different times of the day. Most adults need about eight hours of sleep per night, and a very small percentage of people (about 3%) can be productive during the day with just six hours of sleep - this is due precisely to their genetics.

Generally, the older you get, the less sleep you need. Here is a short list of how many hours on average people of different ages need to sleep:

newborns (from one month to two) - from 10.5 to 18 hours;
infants (from three to 11 months) - from 10 to 14 hours;
small children (from one year to three years) - from 12 to 14 hours;
children of preschool age (from three to five years old) - from 12 to 14 hours;
children (from five to 12 years old) - from 10 to 11 hours;
teenagers (from 12 to 18 years old) - from 8.5 to 9.5 hours;
adults (from 18 years old to the end of life) - from 7.5 to 8.5 hours.

Studies have confirmed that those who sleep too much or too little have an increased risk of death compared to those who sleep enough.

Hungarian soldier didn't sleep for 40 years and felt great

Paul Kern was a Hungarian soldier who fought in the First World War. He was an excellent soldier and fought even when all the other soldiers from his company were killed, for which he was awarded a medal. Despite his fighting skills, he also received a gunshot wound that should have killed him, but Paul survived.

Paul was shot in the temple and part of his brain was damaged. The bullet destroyed part of the frontal lobe - such a wound would have killed anyone. But the only thing that changed in Paul's life after being wounded was that he could no longer sleep. Generally.

Doctors carefully examined him and could not understand how he managed to survive. In fact, the inability to sleep became the soldier's only problem. Sleeping pills and sedatives did not help. It may sound terrible, but Paul did not suffer - part of him nervous system was also destroyed. The man did not perceive the exhaustion and assured everyone that he felt great. Kern did not sleep for 40 years - until his death in 1955.

Your dreams really affect your real life

According to research, the content of our dreams is reflected in our real relationships with other people while awake - for example, causing disputes and doubts the very next day. Thus, dreams can predict the future behavior of a couple, especially for intimate relationships.

The researchers asked more than 60 men and women to write down detailed information about their dreams as soon as they wake up, as well as to keep a personal diary and Special attention pay records relating to relationships with their other half.

If people saw a partner at night in a dream, then the next day this led to problems in relationships, and after dreams in which there was a conflict with a partner, serious difficulties in relationships followed. If the dreamer cheated on the second half in a dream, then this led to a decrease in love and trust, and the effect lasted for several days.

However, not all results were negative: those who saw something pleasant about their partner in their dreams spent more time with them and became closer to them in real life.

True, the researchers are not entirely clear whether the subjects acted unconsciously under the influence of dreams, or whether their actions were dictated by the analysis of their dreams - they could then re-read all the dreams in a diary and rethink.

Why do you wake up five minutes before your alarm goes off?

Your body's internal clock is just as good, if not better, than a mechanical clock. At the center of the brain is a cluster of nerves called the suprachiasmatic nucleus that oversees the body's clock, the circadian rhythm. It determines periods of drowsiness and alertness, controls blood pressure, body temperature and sense of time.

In essence, our body is a perfectly tuned machine, and this machine loves predictability: the work of the body becomes most efficient when there is a routine. So if you fall asleep and wake up at the same time for several days, then the internal clock adjusts to this schedule.

The sleep-wake cycle is regulated by the PER protein. Protein levels rise and fall throughout the day, peaking in the evening and falling at night. When PER is low, your blood pressure drops, your heart rate slows, and your thinking becomes foggier - you become sleepy.

If you wake up every day at the same time, then the body will learn to produce enough PER at the right time - about an hour before waking up, the PER level along with body temperature and blood pressure will start to grow. To prepare for the stress of being awake, your body produces a cocktail of stress hormones called cortisol.

That is why you wake up before the alarm. In fact, your body hates this alarm clock - for it, such a sudden awakening is stress, a shock. The alarm clock cancels out all the work of your body - it prevents it from waking up gradually, naturally.

By the way, if you don’t wake up before the alarm, then you probably don’t get enough sleep or go to bed off schedule. If, for example, you get up at different times on weekdays and weekends, then you “reset” the settings of the internal clock. Without a schedule, your body doesn't know when to wake up, so when the alarm goes off, you feel overwhelmed and irritated.

You press the snooze button, and since your body is already awake, albeit under stress, the subsequent REM sleep further throws off the internal clock. The hormones that help you fall asleep mix with the hormones that help you wake up - the body gets confused and gets worse with each repeated alarm. So morning trills are the worst way to start the day.

Sleeping on your left side can save you from heartburn

Acid indigestion, or heartburn, is a burning sensation in the chest. The reason for this unpleasant phenomenon is our regurgitation stomach acid. Having arisen in the chest, the burning sensation can spread to the neck, throat, and even the jaw. Heartburn can lead to the development of gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Most of us are familiar with this unpleasant feeling but keep in mind - sleeping on the left side of the body can help with heartburn, while sleeping on the right side will only aggravate the situation.

Presumably, this happens because during sleep on the right side, the circular muscle, which prevents the penetration of food debris from the stomach into the esophagus, relaxes, ceases to perform its function, and the acidity of the esophagus thus increases.

With the help of a brain scan, you can peep what you are dreaming of

Scientists have been able to develop a technique for decoding brain impulses that allows you to understand the category to which your dream belongs, with an accuracy of up to 60%.

The fact is that in our dreams the same visual images are often repeated, for example, “tree” or “man”. The researchers identified about 20 main categories, developed separately for each participant. Note that such items as, for example, "ice ax", "key" and "piston" belong to the same category - "tools".

Three volunteers were asked to look at photos from the Internet that matched these categories, and at that moment their brain activity was monitored. Then the obtained data were entered into a specially designed computer program, after which the scanning continued during sleep. The researchers, led by neurologist Yuki Kamitani, were monitoring the subjects' brain activity at the time. As soon as it was possible to determine what the volunteers saw in their dreams, they were woken up and asked to describe their dreams.

So far, the system is far from perfect and can only guess visualizations from a wide range of categories. Decoding the details of dreams is currently not possible.

If you suddenly wake up a sleepwalker, nothing bad will happen to him.

There is a common myth that if you wake up a sleepwalker, he can go through a severe shock, and he can even have a heart attack. In fact, waking up from such a dream is not dangerous in itself. But if you happen to see a person who walks in a dream, it is still better not to wake him up - both for him and for you.

While in itself there is nothing dangerous for the health of a person suffering from sleepwalking, there is a high probability that a person from surprise may injure himself and harm the one who woke him up. Typically, a sleepwalker begins to walk during the third stage of non-REM sleep, also known as " slow sleep". At this stage, sleep is very deep and it is quite difficult to wake up at this time, although it is possible. However, waking up can lead to a cognitive impairment (scientists call this state of "sleep inertia") that can last up to 30 minutes.

Experts in the field of sleep disorders say that a person who suddenly wakes up from a deep sleep can become very frightened, not understand where he is for a long time, or become extremely aroused. He can easily not recognize you, push or hit. But even if such a person did not react aggressively, he can still harm both you and himself: many sleepwalkers go to the kitchen to cook in a dream or even try to drive a car with all the ensuing consequences.

Instead of waking a sleepwalker, experts advise gently and slowly taking him back to bed.

Lack of sleep spoils your personal life

Poor sleep significantly affects your daily relationships in a couple: usually the partner who gets less sleep or often has nightmares becomes grumpy, starts complaining about life and accuses the other of not being appreciated or not paying enough attention. Researchers from the University of Berkeley wondered why this is happening.

Scientists asked for 60 pairs different ages, 18 to 56 years old, keep a sleep diary. Participants had to write down how well they slept each morning and add how they felt about their partner. In addition, during the resolution of disputes in the family, a video was recorded. Those people whose sleep was worse turned out to be much more intolerant and irritable.

There are several reasons why a person may not get enough sleep - for example, snoring or loud noises from the next room that interfere with sleep. And some people are proud of the fact that they sleep 4-5 hours a day and can go without sleep for a long time.

The experts recalled that proper sleep is extremely important for physical and mental health, and in order to feel alert and active, a person needs from 5 to 8 hours of sleep every day.

Today, every third person on Earth suffers from insomnia. Only 40% of the world's population gets enough sleep.

Did you know that when you snore, you don't dream. Or that infants, up to three years old, do not see themselves in a dream. From this age until about age 7 or 8, children have many more nightmares than adults.
Surprisingly, a person sleeps for a third of his life. It would seem that this is an integral part of being, but why then do most people know so little about it? Everyone should study this concept. That is why we present you 10 interesting facts about human sleep.

People who are blind after birth can see pictures in their dreams. However, those who were blind at birth do not see them, but experience dreams that include all other senses such as sound, smell, touch, and emotion.

5 minutes after waking up, a person forgets half of the dream, and after 10 minutes, 90%. The famous poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, woke up one morning from a dream (probably caused by opium) - he began to write and describe his "dream", which became one of the most famous English poems - Kubla Khan. After writing 54 lines, he was interrupted. When Coleridge returned to his poem, he could not remember the rest of the dream. As a result, the verse was never completed.
Interestingly, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the story "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" after seeing it in a dream. Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" was also the brainchild of a dream.

Every person dreams (this is impossible, only in case of serious mental disorders), but men and women have different physical reactions to what they see. Men most often dream of other men, while women dream of both sexes equally. In addition, men and women experience sexually related physical reactions to their dreams, whether they are dreaming about sex or not.

In recent studies, students were awakened at the start of each nap, allowing them to sleep fully for 8 hours. As a result, they experienced concentration problems, irritability, hallucinations, and all the signs of psychosis after only three days of the experiment.

Dreams are often full of strangers that we meet in different parts of the world. However, did you know that our mind does not invent them - these are the real faces of real people that you have ever seen in your life and simply did not remember. The evil killer in your last dream could be the guy who poured gas into your dad's car when you were a kid. Throughout our lives, we have seen hundreds of thousands of faces that are now the heroes of our dreams.

Not everyone sees colorful dreams

12% of sighted people see black and white dreams. The rest see color. People also have similar themes in their dreams, such as various situations related to school, stalking, sexual experiences, falling, being late, meeting dead people, teeth falling out, flying, failing an exam, and a car accident. It is unknown if dreams of death or violence in color evoke the same reaction if they were dreamed in black and white.

If you dream about a particular topic, it is not necessary that the meaning of the dream is related to it. Dreams communicate with us in the language of symbols. The subconscious is trying to compare your dream with something that looks like it. Agree, you will never compare something with him: "This sunset is as beautiful as a beautiful sunset." Therefore, sometimes the symbolic meaning of a dream can be completely opposite to that seen in the dream itself.

Heavy smokers who quit this addiction begin to see more colorful and vivid dreams than usual. In addition, according to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, among 293 smokers who abstained from cigarettes for 1 to 4 weeks, 33% reported having at least one dream about smoking. In most dreams, people saw themselves smoking and experienced strong negative emotions, such as panic and guilt. Such dreams are more vivid and rich.

Most of us have experienced a similar experience - when the sound is in reality, we hear it in a dream. The same effect occurs when you are thirsty in reality, and this feeling is embedded in your dream. You dream that you drink a large glass of water, but do not get drunk, you drink more and more until you wake up and drink it in reality. A famous painting by Salvador Dali, "Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate, a second before awakening", depicts this concept.

Believe it or not, your body is virtually paralyzed while you sleep. This is necessary in order to protect him from any actions (movements) experienced in a dream. Thyroid secretes a hormone that induces sleep, after which neurons send signals to spinal cord which relax and actually paralyze the body.