Animal studies suggest that sleep is as vital as food for survival. Rats, for example, normally live 2–3 years, but they live only 5 weeks if they are deprived of REM sleep and only 2–3 weeks if they are deprived of all sleep stages—a timeframe similar to death due to starvation. But how much sleep do humans need? To help answer that question, scientists look at how much people sleep when unrestricted, the average amount of sleep among various age ...
A number of tasks vital to health and quality of life are linked to sleep, and these tasks are impaired when you are sleep deprived. Learning, Memory, and Mood Students who have trouble grasping new information or learning new skills are often advised to "sleep on it," and that advice seems well founded. Recent studies reveal that people can learn a task better if they are well rested. They also can remember better what they learned if they get a ...
Most people are aware of the hazards of drunk driving. But driving while sleepy can be just as dangerous. Indeed, crashes due to sleepy drivers are as deadly as those due to drivers impaired by alcohol. And you don't have to be asleep at the wheel to put yourself and others in danger. Both alcohol and a lack of sleep hamper your ability to react quickly to a suddenly braking car, a sharp curve in the road, or other situations ...
Eastward travel generally causes more severe jet lag than westward travel because traveling east requires you to shorten the day, and your biological clock is better able to adjust to ...
Eastward travel generally causes more severe jet lag than westward travel because traveling east requires you to shorten the day, and your biological clock is better able to adjust to a longer day than a shorter day. Fortunately for globetrotters, a few preventive measures and treatments seem to help some people relieve jet lag: Adjust your biological clock. Several days before traveling to a new time zone, gradually shift your sleeping and eating times to coincide with those at your ...
Although you may put off going to sleep in order to squeeze more activities into your day, eventually your need for sleep becomes overwhelming and you are forced to get some sleep. This daily drive for sleep appears to be due, in part, to a compound known as adenosine. This natural chemical builds up in your blood as time awake increases. While you sleep, your body breaks down the adenosine. Thus, this molecule may be what your body uses to ...
Sleep was long considered just a uniform block of time when you are not awake. Thanks to sleep studies done over the past several decades, it is now known that sleep has distinct stages that cycle throughout the night in predictable patterns. How well rested you are and how well you function depend not just on your total sleep time but on how much of the various stages of sleep you get each night. Your brain stays active throughout sleep, ...
Think of everything you do during your day. Try to guess which activity is so important you should devote one-third of your time to doing it. Probably the first things that come to mind are working, spending time with your family, or pursuing leisure activities. But there's something else you should be doing about one-third of your time—sleeping. Many people view sleep as merely a "down time" when their brain shuts off and their body rests. In a rush to ...
