We like to think that sleep is the time of peace and quiet when we power down and pull back from the craziness of the world to recharge and reset - Na so! But for many of us, the minute we shut our eyes and doze off is when the truly weird stuff starts happening - weeing, messing, shouting, reading, driving, even eating. This is very common especially when you have a not so comfortable day time. So hold your breath, laugh out loud when you identify yours as you learn more about those terrific things you do in your sleep. Mine is like 10 over 10 of everything. Lol!
Source: youtube
1. You Paralyze
REM, which stands for "rapid eye movement" is the deepest phase of sleep. When you vividly recall a dream, it likely occurred during a REM cycle. In REM stages, muscles in our arms and legs are temporarily paralyzed while we sleep. This paralysis is normal, and it's not the same as sleep paralysis, which occurs for a few seconds or minutes after you awaken (or, rarely, just before you fall asleep). In this disorder, the normal paralysis that happens during sleep holds on for a few scary moments after you wake up. If you experience this, check with your physician; it could be a symptom of narcolepsy.
2. You Jerk Awake
It may feel like you're falling or it may feel like you've been jolted awake, but hypnic jerks (sometimes called hypnagogic jerks) are a natural and common part of falling asleep. This phenomenon causes your limbs to jerk, perhaps because your body is preparing for the changes that take place during sleep, or perhaps because your body misinterprets the signs of impending sleep as falling--and thus jerks you in a misguided effort to stay upright. Scientists don't agree on what exactly causes hypnic jerks, but they're typically harmless.
source: youtube
3. Your Eyes Moves
As you sleep, you experience five phases of sleep, with REM as the last and most active phase. Once you complete a REM cycle, you'll start the first phase anew. Seventy to 90 minutes after you fall asleep, you should be in REM sleep, and you'll spend about 20 percent of your time sleeping in this stage. During REM sleep, our eyes dart quickly back and forth, but we typically have no memory of this (other than memories of dreams that often happen in this phase).
4. Produces Human Growth Hormone
Human growth hormone, or HGH, helps muscles, bone, and other tissues regenerate. The helpful hormone is released during sleep, especially its deepest stages, and is thought to be prompted by low blood glucose levels present during sleep, among other factors. So, there is some science behind the concept of beauty sleep!
Source: youtube
5. Your Throat Narrows
As you sleep, your breathing changes and your throat naturally narrows a bit as your muscles relax. If you've experienced a partner who snores noisily, you know what it sounds like when the throat becomes a bit too narrow. (Of course, snoring can have many causes, including a stuffy nose or tonsil issues.) Worse, the airway can close completely, causing sleep apnea.
6. Your Teeth Grinds
Bruxism (teeth clenching or grinding) happens to many people during sleep. It may be exacerbated by stress or a misaligned jaw, but research hasn't pinpointed the reason that some people grind only rarely (or never), while others end up with cracked or worn teeth and sore jaw muscles.
Source: youtube
7. Your Kidneys Slows Down
Kidneys normally function to filter toxins out of the bloodstream and to produce urine. As you sleep, the filtering action of these organs slows, so that less urine is produced. (That's the reason your urine is usually so dark the first time you pee in the morning.)
8. Makes Up Stories
If you've awoken after a vivid dream, you know the vague unease of wondering if it was real--or why your mind produced that crazy mishmash of a story, to begin with. Despite much research into dreaming and many hypotheses about why we dream and what dreams mean, the nuts and bolts of this everyday happening are still a mystery. Scientists have not yet figured out why we dream as we do, or found a proven process that would explain the content of our dreams.
9. Your Head Creates an Explosion
It's rare, but some people who experience exploding head syndrome hear a loud crash or bang, almost like a gunshot, just as they're drifting off to sleep. It's usually painless, but frightening, and tends to occur in adults over 50.
Source: youtube
10. You Turn into a Chatterbox
It's more common in children than adults and in men than women, but talking in your sleep happens to about 5 percent of us. Dubbed "somniloquy," sleep talking is technically a sleep disorder, but may not bother you at all. In fact, you may not even realize you're doing it. Like dreaming, somniloquy has yet to be explained and can occur in any stage of sleep. When you're sleeping lightly, your words will be easier to hear, and vice versa. Talking in your sleep can be sparked by episodes of stress, depression, and illness, or occur alongside other sleep issues, such as sleep apnea.
11. You Experience Erections for Nearly Half the Night
Speaking of erections, these Sleep-Related Erections (also known as Nocturnal Penile Tumescence) occur a lot more often and remain much longer than you might expect.
Men normally have about five erections during sleep each lasting about 25 minutes during a typical eight-hour sleep.
Source: youtube
12. You Drain a Full Liter of Fluid
Natural body functioning leads us to lose a lot of fluid during the night, due to sweating and even just exhaling.
Have you ever breathed on a window or a mirror and seen fog? We emanate moisture every time we exhale. This, in addition to sweating, is the reason people often wake up very thirsty in the mornings. Experts estimate that a person loses about a liter of fluid a night.
14. You Stop Breathing
One of the most dangerous sleep-related things is when you don’t do anything. Sleep apnea is a condition in which muscles in the back of the throat fail to keep the airway open and your airway becomes blocked. The disruption in normal breathing can last from a few seconds to a few minutes. While it’s not likely that you’ll die of suffocation, apnea has been associated with high blood pressure, headaches, and even heart failure.
Source: mnet.com
15. You Can’t Stay Still
Some people are prone to serious twitching during their sleep, a condition called hypnagogic jerk—which usually occurs in the transition from sleep to wakefulness.
The unconscious muscle jerks are most common in children and are often at random, although they can be triggered in some instances by noise or light. This often accompanies the feeling of falling. So if you’ve ever had one of those quick dreams as you’re falling asleep that you’ve tripped or fallen off something and you’re jarred awake, you’re likely experiencing hypnagogic jerk.
16. You Stop Salivating
Well, you don’t actually stop salivating altogether, but during sleep, the average person significantly reduces the amount of saliva that they produce. This reduction in flow is part of our circadian rhythm. Saliva is responsible for continuously rinsing the mouth. It contains some immunoglobulins that fight the bacteria in the mouth that cause tooth decay or gum disease. Due to diminished salivary flow, while we are sleeping, we end up waking up with not-so-pleasant morning breath.
Source: youtube
17. You trim the mental fat - really?
During sleep, our brain reviews the day we had (or the week, the year, the decade), and catalogs different people, places, feelings, events, and memories in their appropriate compartments. We separate what we need from what we don’t, and this is different for every individual. We trim the mental fat on the one hand and introduce different ideas and visions which matter, through the symbolism of dreams.
18. You bite your tongue
In addition to teeth-gnashing, some people can unconsciously mutilate their own tongues. Habitual nighttime tongue biting is another weird thing we do in our sleep. This can cause tongue scalloping, where the sides of the tongue are “ruffled,” or even bleeding. Tongue biting could be caused by stress and anxiety, like bruxism. Certain medications could cause tongue biting during sleep as well as illnesses and sleep disorders.
19. You get turned on
This is often as a result of blood flow and it causes sexual arousal without your permission because you are asleep in the first place. Good news is, if you are in bed with your partner and you both love some night action, it helps you kick off real good.
Source: youtube
20. You have sex
I really can not connect this together - sleep and sex. Sex is a conscious thing and sleep is similar to that also. But research finds out that more women than men have actually had sex in their sleep with their partners. And they wake up feeling great but with a faint memory of how or when it happened.
Weird right?
By Ade, son of Ade
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