Ten Weird, But Interesting Facts About Sleep

To briefly describe the state of sleep; It is the most natural form of rest of all mammals”. It is a fact that all living things need sleep in order to perform their daily vital functions. As beneficial as regular and adequate sleep is, on the contrary, it can cause irritability, distraction and forgetfulness. It has been proven that living things also exhibit certain behaviours during sleep. There is also a branch of science that studies this. The method of studying behaviour is the study of brain waves using EEG. Brain waves are formed as a result of electrical traffic between billions of neurons and if you thought that was interesting let’s get on with these ten other amazing facts before we all nod off…

One Long Nap

The average person spends about 26 years sleeping in their life which equates to 9,490 days or 227,760 hours. Surprisingly, we also spend 7 years trying to get to sleep. That’s 33 years or 12,045 days spent in bed!

The Pains of Birth

A survey reveals that parents lose an average of six months’ sleep during the first 24 months of their child’s life. Approximately 10% of parents manage to get just two-and-a-half hours of continuous sleep each night.

Get Some Sleep

Sleep deprivation is known to be a maximum of 11 days. People need sleep to survive as it allows their body to repair itself and perform essential biological functions.

7 or More

Less than 7 hours of sleep reduces your quality of life. Getting less than 7 hours of sleep on a regular basis can eventually lead to health consequences that affect your entire body. This may also be caused by an underlying sleep disorder.

Sleep Weight Gain

When we think of the key factors controlling our weight, most of us probably think of diet and exercise. We all know that we have to try to eat healthily and that it’s important to take regular exercise if we want to keep our weight in check. But it might be interesting to learn that there’s a third factor which is just as important and often overlooked: sleep. A lack of sleep can cause you to gain about 0.9 kg per week!

The Sleepy Snail

Snails need moisture to survive; so if the weather is not cooperating, they can actually sleep for up to three years. It has been reported that depending on geography, snails can shift into hibernation (which occurs in the winter), or estivation (also known as ‘summer sleep’), helping to escape warm climates.

11 Days To Nap

The longest recorded time without sleep is approximately 264 hours, or just over 11 consecutive days. Although it’s unclear exactly how long humans can survive without sleep, it isn’t long before the effects of sleep deprivation start to show. After only three or four nights without sleep, you can start to hallucinate.

Lay Down

Many Tibetan monks sleep in a sitting position. In fact, most people can sleep while sitting or standing but if they enter a deep, dreamy phase; it becomes difficult and they might eventually fall over.

Moon Sleeper

According to research, the best sleep occurs on the night of the new moon, and the worst sleep occurs on the night of the full moon.

A Long Cap Nat

If you thought cats spent a lot of their lives sleeping, you’d be right. According to Veterinary Hub , Cats actually spend 70% of their lives sleeping, which works out to around 13-16 hours a day. It’s a cat’s life!

Do you know of any other amazing facts about sleep? If you do why not leave them in the comments below.