Special Feature
The Science of Sleep: What Do We Know Thus Far?
By Dr. Robert Oexman, Director of the Sleep To Live Institute It wasn’t until the latter half of the 20th cen- tury that scientists started to take a real in- terest in sleep from a neurological perspec- tive and not until the late 1980’s that sleep medicine was recognized as a specialty by the American Medical Association (AMA). In this time, we have learned a lot about vari- ous aspects of human sleep cycles and the
stages that make up our sleep. There is still much to learn as we take this new medical discipline into the 21st century. So, what do we know thus far? Sleep is a function of the human body as essen- tial as breathing. It is a complex process that changes to fit our needs throughout our life; babies will spend most of the day sleeping and in a proportion of sleep stag- es completely different from an adult. Sim- ilarly, the elderly will tend to sleep less and
10 Interesting Facts About Sleep
Most adults need an average of
seven to nine hours of sleep each night
‘Good night
sleep tight’ comes from
Shakespearian times when your mattress was secured by ropes—tying the ropes tighter
made your mattress firmer
A bath makes you sleepy because your
body’s core
Visit /
sleeptoliveinstitute.com 32 Sleep Retailer / Fall 2015
temperature drops upon you getting out
Teenagers need at least eight and half to nine and
a quarter hours of sleep each night—but their internal
biological clocks can keep them awake later in the
evening and interfere with waking in the morning
Studies have shown that fragmented sleep can lower your
metabolism and increase your levels of the hormone
cortisol—which can result in an increased appetite and
decreased ability to burn calories
You burn
more calories sleeping than watching TV
with varying amounts of sleep stages than those seen in younger adults. The sleep and wake cycle that we move through every day is mediated by a process called the circadian rhythm. This process picks up cues (called zeitgebers) from external stimuli, of which the primary one is daylight. The zeitge- bers move the circadian rhythm through phases on a roughly 24-hour schedule. The phases are marked by hormone releases such as mel- atonin and core body temperature changes.
You have an average of about six sleep over 50
Even in REM periods, one of
deepest stages of sleep, you can still wake up
the when you hear your own
name called out A snail can sleep for
three years straight
You have an average of
five dreams per every
eight hours you sleep
position changes per night, but smaller movements can total
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