The 6 Fascinating Mysteries of Sleep

We do this everyday. Our brain cannot function properly without this. Yes, I am talking about the most important part of our everyday lives, sleep. It might seem so simple but when you think about it deeply, you might wonder why do we sleep? It has always been a big mystery for more than hundred years. But why is sleep a mystery? In this article, we are going to discuss some of the mysteries of sleep. 

 

1. Not sleeping might actually kill you. There is a flashback behind it. In the 1800s, a man named Giacomo fell ill all of a sudden. He was suffering from dementia and was unable to sleep. Eventually, he died. The surprising part is, his disease this condition to his descendants and some of his family members still experience this even today. But only in the 1970s, scientists were able to find the cause. It is a genetic disorder called Fatal Familial Insomnia.The beginning stages of the disease includes insomnia and hallucination. This causes damage to the brain region called the thalamus which is ultimately responsible for the regulation of sleep and consciousness. Why do we sleep? We sleep to give our organs some rest. Since he is sleepless, it caused his body to never be able to rest. His organs had to function all the time without any rest, hence they started to fail.

 

1. Constantin Von Economo, a doctor, was treating patients who were suffering from encephalitis lethargica. His patients were experiencing symptoms like brain inflammation and lethargy. Later, he proposed that the brainstem is responsible for sending the waking signal to the forebrain and Hypothalamus helps in regulating the transition between being asleep and awake. He is the one that laid the foundation for current generation scientists to understand the snitch between sleeping and awakening.

 

1. Blue light is claimed to be bad for sleep. We tend to use cell phones all day every day. Whether it is an important office meeting or casual conversation with friends, we rely on technology so much. We all must agree that even before going to sleep, we all use mobile phones. Studies suggest that the blue light emitted from our smartphones and laptops can have a major impact on the production of melatonin( a hormone responsible for sleeping). People who use mobile phones before going to sleep tend to have disrupted sleep cycle.

 

1. If you are influenced by the myth that the more you sleep, the better you feel. It’s time to unlearn it because it is not true. Adults would need a maximum of 7 to 8 hours of sleep. If you tend to sleep longer than that, it might lead to other health issues. It is true that children need more sleep for behavioral development but adults need not follow the same.

 

1. If you think your sleeping brain won’t be active, then it’s time for you to know that it is a myth. Research has shown that in sleeping patients, EEG brain waves become larger in amplitude at the level of the brainstem and thalamus. Another reason is that while you are sleeping, the neurotoxic waste is cleared from the brain.

 

1. It is one of the common myths about sleep. You could have heard others saying, if you remember your dreams you have slept well. But it’s a myth. Our dreams mostly occur during the REM cycle, therefore they are forgotten easily. But sometimes, you can remember your dreams simply because you woke up just after your REM cycle.