7 interesting facts about sleep

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Knowledge is power. And a life hacker needs knowledge doubly. In this series of articles, we collect fascinating and sometimes unexpected facts about the world around us. We hope that you will find them not only interesting, but also practically useful.

Until recently, mass research into the nature of sleep was a rather difficult undertaking. The person had to be persuaded or interested in participating in a scientific program, placed in a laboratory, and using special equipment. Everything has changed with the proliferation of popular fitness gadgets that can record various physiological indicators directly in the process of a person's everyday life. Yes, their capabilities are not too great in comparison with scientific equipment, but how wide the range of experimental subjects is!

Sleep duration

A person spends a third of his life on sleep. It takes about 25 years - think about this figure! However, it is not so easy to take and shorten the sleep time. For a full-fledged existence, our body needs about 7-8 hours of night rest. If this figure is significantly less, then there is a rapid decline in mental and physical abilities. However, scientists have noticed that over the past century, due to rapid technological progress, the average sleep time has decreased from 9 to 7.5 hours. Who knows, maybe this is not the limit.

Records

The longest period of time during which a healthy person was able to go without sleep was 11 days. The record was in 1965 by a 17-year-old high school student from San Diego, California. Although history knows an even more impressive case when he received brain damage due to a head wound and did not sleep as a result for almost 40 years.

Sleep and weight

Scientists believe that a systematic lack of sleep can lead to a fairly rapid increase in weight (up to a kilogram within a week). This is explained by the fact that the body, with a lack of resources, tries to replenish them in any available way. Therefore, the subjects constantly felt hungry, which as a result led to the appearance of extra pounds. Therefore, if you want to lose weight, get enough sleep.

How geniuses slept

Great people differ from everyone else not only in their mental abilities, but also in some of their everyday habits. For example, Leonardo da Vinci used the polyphasic sleep method: he rested every 4 hours for 15 minutes. Nikola Tesla slept 2 hours a day, and Einstein rested a little more - 4 hours a day.

Dreaming

Some people claim they never dream. However, this is not true: according to scientists, everyone sees dreams. However, we forget the vast majority of dreams. After five minutes of wakefulness, 50% of the night's adventures are already impossible to remember, and if ten minutes have passed, then this figure approaches 90%. Hence the conclusion: if you want to record your night's sleep, put a notebook with a pen or a voice recorder next to you to do it right away.

Alarm clocks

The first mechanical alarm clock was invented by Levi Hutchins in 1787 in America. He knew how to wake up only at the same time - 4 o'clock in the morning. The alarm clock, which can be set to any desired time, appeared only 60 years later thanks to the Frenchman Antoine Redier. But then these were insanely expensive devices, so ordinary people often used services that walked the streets and knock on the window at a predetermined time.

Women and men

According to statistics compiled by Fitbit, women sleep about 20 minutes more than men. In terms of sleep quality, men sleep more restlessly and wake up more often. On the other hand, women are 10% more likely to complain about sleep problems and mark the quality of their sleep as unsatisfactory. This can be explained by the fact that women see much richer and more emotional dreams, sometimes turning into nightmares.

Do you manage to get enough sleep? How many hours do you think a night's sleep should last?