Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety. The way you feel while you’re awake depends in part on what happens while you’re sleeping. During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health. In children and teens, sleep also helps support growth and development. The damage from sleep deficiency can occur in an instant, or it can harm you over time. For example, ongoing sleep deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic health problems. It also can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and get along with others. Every mammal, bird and most reptiles, amphibians and fish need to sleep in order to function properly.
Here are 16 things you probably didn’t know about sleep:
- Did you know that longest sleeping mammals are koalas – 22 hours and the shortest sleeping are giraffes – 1.9 hours taken in 5-10 minute sessions.
- People need different amounts of sleep, depending on their age. Babies need the most – 16 hours and people over 65 need the least – 6 hours
- One out of fifty teenagers still wet their beds.
- 5 minutes after you wake up, 50% of your dream is already forgotten. And in 10 minutes after you wake up, 90% is gone.
- Did you know that you’ll die from sleep deprivation before food deprivation? It takes 14 days to starve, but 10 days without sleep can kill you.
- Blind people can see images while they dream. The people who were born blind, experience dreams involving emotion, sound, smell and touch, instead of sight.
- One out of four married couples sleep in separate rooms.
- Did you know that dreaming is a normal thing? People who don’t dream usually have personality disorders.
- Your sleeping position may determine your personality.
- Only 12% of people dream only in black and white. This percentage used to be higher but since the advent of color TVs, more people dream in color than before.
- You can only dream about people and faces you’ve already seen. It doesn’t matter do you actively remember them or not.
- This is an interesting fact. Did you know that when dolphins sleep, only half of their brain shuts down? The other half stays awake to help with breathing cycles.
- Women dream about other women and men, equally. But, men have dreams about other men 70% of the time.
- Do you know what Parasomnia is? Parasomnia is a type of sleep disorder that makes you do un-natural movements, despite being asleep. People commit crimes when they are in parasomnia, such as: sleep driving, writing bad cheques, murder, child molesting and sexual assault.
- One of the first people who developed the method in staying up 36 hours without sleep were the British soldiers. When they felt fatigued, they put on the special visors that emulated the brightness of a sunrise and it woke them up.
- When you sleep – your body recharges, your cells repair themselves and your body releases important hormones.