35+ Interesting Facts About Sleep That You Didn’t Know!

Have you heard of any interesting sleep facts? We all think we know a thing or two about sleep. After all, it’s not just something we all share, but it’s also something we do at least once a day.

Every year, we discover something new about sleep, like why we sleep and how it affects us. In reality, our understanding of sleep has improved more than ever in the last 30 years. However, there is still much to discover. How well-versed are you in the subject of sleep? Here are more than 35 interesting sleep facts that you may not have known. 

Interesting Sleep Facts

• When people grind their teeth during sleep at night, they can apply up to 250 pounds of force.
• Have trouble waking up on Monday morning? Blame “social jet lag” from your altered weekend sleep schedule.  
• Sleep deprivation will kill you more quickly than food deprivation. Neither are good for you, obviously, but getting enough sleep on a regular is actually more important than food in the short term.
• Tiredness peaks twice a day: Around 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. for most people. That’s why you’re less alert after lunch.
• It’s not unusual for deaf people to use sign language in their nighttime sleep.
• Two-thirds of US high school students get less than 8 hours of sleep on school nights.
• Female US high school students get less sleep than their male counterparts.

• Up to 66% of people talk in their sleep at some point in their lives, but only 17% of people say it has happened in the last three months.
• Sleep experts have discovered a direct link between people’s favourite sleeping positions and their personalities. This is also according to Professor Idzikowski, suggesting that those who sleep in the fetal position “may appear tough but are actually sensitive souls right to their core.”
• Ideally, falling asleep at night should take you 10-15 minutes.If it takes you less than five minutes, chances are, you’re sleep-deprived.
• Humans are the only mammals that willingly delay sleep. How nice it must be to just go to sleep whenever and wherever you are!
• Fear is said not to be the main emotion in nightmares.Instead, researchers have found that it’s most often feelings of sadness, guilt, and confusion.
• Over the age of 40, 69 percent of men and 76 percent of women get up at least once a night to use the restroom.

• Active duty service members are 34% more likely to report inadequate sleep than civilians who have never served in the military.
• Within 5 minutes of waking up, 50% of your dream is forgotten.
• Two-thirds of a cat’s life is spent asleep. This will come as no surprise to most cat owners. Every sofa is a sofa bed to them. Otherwise found on your favorite seat or computer keyboard.
• Not all dreams are in color. While most people report dreaming in color, a small percentage of people claim to only dream in black and white.
• Newborn babies sleep on average 15-16 hours in a 24 hour period.
• A significant number of teenagers, including up to 72% of high school students, get less than the recommended amount of sleep.
• During sleep, the body temperature decreases by one or two degrees Fahrenheit.

Facts About Sleep Tracking

• Sleep trackers collect biometric data during sleep, such as heart rate, movement, and sometimes even breathing patterns.
• Advanced sleep trackers can differentiate between sleep stages, including light, deep, and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, providing a more detailed analysis of sleep quality.
• Sleep trackers often calculate the quality of sleep, a metric that measures the percentage of time spent asleep while in bed, giving an indication of how well one sleeps.
• Sleep tracking data is often integrated with broader health and fitness apps, allowing users to correlate sleep patterns with other health metrics.
• The collection of sensitive health data, particularly sleep patterns, raises privacy concerns, leading to discussions about data security and ownership.

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More Interesting Sleep Facts

• In comparison to 32.7 percent of adults in two-parent homes, 42.6 percent of single parents sleep less than seven hours a night.
• Even when you’re in bed with your eyes closed, low light can increase the risk of awakenings and may have negative effects on circadian rhythm. 
• The Snooze bar can provide what seems like precious minutes to keep sleeping between alarms, but this time is unlikely to offer meaningful rest.
• Women are 40 percent more likely than men to experience insomnia during their lives.
• Three-quarters of those who suffer from depression also suffer from a lack of sleep.
• Shift workers who work nights lose more sleep than those who work during the day.
• Parents of newborn babies lose 6 months worth of sleep in the first 2 years of their child’s life.

• In a survey of adults in the United States, 28.2% said they used a mobile app to monitor their sleep.
• A comfortable mattress is crucial to getting good sleep, according to 93 percent of people.
• 35% of US adults get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep each night.
• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
• 60% of American adults experience sleep problems at some time.
• Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder.
• 37 million Americans snore regularly.
• Each child in a mother’s household increases her risk of getting insufficient sleep by 46%.
• Research shows that having a newborn baby impacts men’s sleep more than women’s.

Facts About Sleep Stages

• Sleep is divided into cycles, each lasting approximately 90 to 110 minutes. A complete sleep cycle includes all stages of sleep: NREM (non-rapid eye movement) and REM (rapid eye movement).
• NREM sleep has three stages, namely N1, N2, and N3. N1 is the transition from wakefulness to sleep, N2 is a slightly deeper sleep, and N3 is deep sleep or slow-wave sleep (SWS), crucial for physical restoration and growth.
• REM sleep is associated with vivid dreaming and rapid eye movements. It occurs approximately 90 minutes after falling asleep and is crucial for cognitive functions, memory consolidation, and emotional regulation.
• A typical night’s sleep consists of multiple sleep cycles. In the first half of the night, deep sleep stages (N3) are more prominent, while REM sleep becomes more dominant in the later cycles.
• Each sleep stage is characterized by distinct patterns of brain activity. For instance, during REM sleep, brain activity is similar to wakefulness, while deep N3 sleep shows slow delta waves.
• The proportion of time spent in each sleep stage changes across the lifespan. Infants spend a significant amount of time in REM sleep, while deep N3 sleep decreases with age.

Conclusion

Every day, scientists and scholars from all over the world learn more and more about sleep, telling us something we never dreamed about. You would imagine that the science behind what we invest years of our lives doing will be clear, but it isn’t. Sleep is enigmatic and vital to your health and well-being. That’s why we’re studying, evaluating, and monitoring it as if it were a brand-new revelation. 

That’s why we compiled this list of more than 35 fascinating and interesting sleep facts that you might not know. We hope that each piece of the interesting sleep facts will help you sleep better and be happier. 

If you have trouble sleeping, try ShutEye®, an all-in-one sleep app. ShutEye brings a wide variety of tools to help you fall asleep and understand your sleep cycles from a scientific perspective.

So stop tossing and turning all night, and start falling asleep healthily and naturally. Know about 8 Relaxing sounds to help you sleep and relieve stress.

Wake up refreshed in your lightest sleep phase!

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