Facts about Sleep

Since we all understand that sleep can basically make or break you, I've pulled a couple of facts from a study by the National Sleep Research Project:

• A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year


• REM sleep occurs in bursts totaling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep. Here is a wikipedia definiation of REM.


• Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It's possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.


• Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.


• The "natural alarm clock" which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.


• After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you've slept enough.


• Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.


• Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal


• Some studies suggest women need up to an hour's extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.