19 Fascinating Facts about Sleeping
Everyone does it and yet sleep is still something of a mystery. How many of our fascinating facts did you know?
- There are different levels of sleep, including REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is when we dream
- Not everyone remembers their dreams but we’re most likely to remember them if we are awoken during REM sleep
- Many animals sleep standing up
- Humans can sleep with their eyes open: animals often sleep with a third eyelid covering their eyes, giving a milky appearance to the eye.
- There are many theories about the purpose of dreams, including that they are a way of processing the events of the day and storing useful information in our memories
- On average, we spend an estimated 25 years of our lives asleep
- Shift working disturbs our natural sleep patterns and is not considered good for our health but some people adapt more easily than others
- In countries where daylight hours are very short during winter, people are inclined to sleep much longer – and the reverse is true in the long daylight hours of summer
- Babies and children need more sleep than adults to grow and develop
- Some studies have claimed that teenagers function best if they wake late in the morning and go to bed later than adults
- We learn to anticipate the time that we normally get up and release a hormone that is associated with stress at about that time, even without an alarm
- Birds are able to allow half their brain to sleep, while the other half processes information that protects them against attacks by predators
- Women need an hour’s more sleep than men
- The quality of sleep we get after drinking alcohol is not as good as usual, which contributes to our feeling worse than normal on waking
- We sleep best when the room temperature is between 18-30C (23-25C in old age)
- Certain disorders allow you to get up and move around, speak and even commit crimes, while apparently still asleep
- 41% of us sleep in the foetal position, with our legs curled towards our bodies. Studies suggest that these people tend to have warm-hearted personalities
- One in four couples sleep in separate beds
- Giraffes sleep less than 2 hours per day in short bursts, whereas koalas sleep 22 hours a day