When I was a kid, I remember my mom said that I have to sleep in the afternoon in order for me to grow tall. I don’t know, but I am a tall person and the reason maybe because I followed my mom’s advice or being tall runs in the family. I’ve noticed that today’s society, people seem to be lacking from sleep when we all know that sleep is very important. What I know and feel is that every time my eyes are dropping in the afternoon, I need to take a nap even for a few 10 to 15 minutes and get recharged because if not, I will be restless for the rest of the day.

Here are some facts about sleep we may not be aware of. Do you know that the most sleep-deprived persons are the college students? Only 11% among the students has a good sleep while 73% has problems on sleeping. Report said that most of them suffered from insomnia and most complaints of insomnia are from the 30% of adults. Their lack of sleep was associated with lower GPAs for it affects the concentration, ability to learn and memory. We need to have at least eight hours of sleep but most adults sleep only for seven hours every night and about two thirds of them experience daytime sleepiness. This happens a few days every month and most of the time it interferes with their work and social activities.

Sleep affects a person’s health, in fact there are more sleep facts that points directly how it affects the person’s well-being. For the newborn babies to grow, they rely only on milk and sleep. They need at least 16 to 20 hours of sleep every day and we, humans consume one third of our lives sleeping. When a person reaches his adolescence, their body clocks are programmed to be sleepy only after 10 o’clock in the evening or maybe later. A person who sleeps less than seven hours a day has more chances of being affected by some diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, depression and heart diseases. Aside from that, most people who are deprived from sleeping are prone to being obese.

Around 70 million Americans suffer from chronic sleep disorder. For most adults, when they are sound asleep, they have four to six sleep cycles that lasted for about 90 to 110 minutes and whenever we are asleep, our limb muscles tend to be paralyzed temporarily during the stage when we have rapid eye movement. This movement will prevent us from acting out from our dreams. High death rate mainly due to heart disease is a result of sleep apnea that remains untreated. People who are driving when they feel sleepy usually are the cause of car accidents and about twenty percent of car accidents are related to drowsy driving.

There are interesting facts about sleep that were a result of several years of study.

• Do you know that people can take cat naps even with their eyes open without the person realizing it?
• The record holder of a person that goes without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes. This was done during a rocking chair marathon but it resulted in a person with paranoia, blurred vision, hallucinations, and memory and concentration lapses as well as slurred speech.
• We dream things about worth forgetting to get rid of the overlapping memories that may block in our brains and we also dream about things worth remembering.
• Sometimes yawning will result by simply seeing a picture of a person that is yawning or an animal yawning and there are times that we yawn by simply seeing the word yawn.
• Rats that are denied of sleep die earlier than those that were denied of food.
• Seventeen hours of continuous wakefulness will lead in the decline of the performance of a person which is the same to a person with 0.05% alcohol level or 2 glasses of wine.
• The number of road accidents in Canada resulted from daylight saving time.
• People are distracted from sleep because of the 24 hours accessibility of the internet.
• Facts that we had today about sleep is a result of the twenty five years of study about sleep.

A person’s lifestyle is associated with how well the person sleeps. The demanding life of a person triggers his difficulty in maintaining the eight hours sleep. Here are some suggestions that can help you promote good night’s sleep.

• Spend some time outside like a walk in the park, relaxation in the sun or an outdoor sport that will preserve the sleep and wake cycle.
• Have a regular eating schedule and avoid eating heavy meals before bedtime.
• Caffeine and nicotine will help you awake because these are stimulants that usually disrupts the sleep pattern.
• Avoid late night outs and staying up late.
• Avoid naps at daytime. A few minutes nap will be helpful for you however long periods will disrupt your regular sleeping time.

Once a person knows his own sleep pattern and sleep needs, he can utilize sleep as a means of increasing his productivity.