Care For Your Sleep

It is possible to talk for hours about why we like sleeping and what is a good sleep like. Below, there are a number of interesting facts and information about our sleep.

• Statistics says that the Spaniards usually sleep 40 minutes less than other European nations do, and the French sleep the longer: up to 9 hours a day.
• An average person spends up to 26 years of his/her life sleeping.
• The older we become, the less time we need for restful sleeping.
• All people without exception see dreams while they sleep. Some people just can not remember their dreams sometimes.
• Not every person can see colorful dreams. The experts say that only 80% of people can see colorful dreams, and the rest 20% see the dreams in black and white.
• Blind people also can see dreams.
• Dreams can sometimes help to foresee coming diseases. For example, if a person sees in his/her dream that his/her throat is damaged or injured, it can be understood as a sign of a coming flu or cold.
• While we snore we do not see dreams.
• 20% of traffic accidents happen due to sleep deprivation or related problems.
• There is a type of phobia called somniphobia, when people are afraid of falling asleep.
• According to a recent study, those who sleep 6-7 hours a day have lower risks of premature death than those who sleep more than 8 hours a day.
• According to the Guinness World Record book, the longest period without sleep was 18 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes.

Technorati Tags: dreams, facts about sleep, interesting about sleep

Recently, Dr. Christiaan Geldenhuys, an American specialist made a series of experiments to find the links between our sleep and the color of our bedroom walls.  The expert is convinced that choosing the right color paint for your bedroom is the most important decision to make when decorating the house. At that, if you made the wrong choice, it can seriously affect the quality of your and especially your children’s sleep. The findings of the research were published in Celdenhuys‘ new book, Sleep Smart.

Geldenhuys argues that we can perceive colors even when we are asleep. He has found out that cold blue color should be considered the best for a good night sleep. The experiments showed that the people can relax and fall asleep much faster in a blue color bedroom.  Geldenhuys underlines that the tints of blue color can create a sensation of space and symbolize peace, tranquility, slow motion and inspiration. In addition, blue colors are cold, so they may have some cooling effects and can even help to lower our body temperature. That is why it is recommended to consider painting your bedroom walls in blue.

Also, it is possible to opt for a combination of red and blue colors for a bedroom of two adult people. The expert says that soft red colors are associated with romantic environment, and light blue colors favor good sleep. Therefore, such combination can be ideal for a couple sharing the same bed. However, if you have difficulties with waking up in the morning, Geldenhuys recommends you to choose yellow color paint for your bedroom. Yellow color symbolizes morning sunlight and boosts our feeling of happiness.

Choosing the paint color for children’s bedroom requires quite a complex approach. For infants and young children it is best of all to opt for the tranquil and masculine blue for the boys and earthly pink for the girls. A teenager’s bedroom should have deeper and more chromatic coloration. At the same time, if you child has learning problems, Geldenhuys advices to use deep green and blue colors for the bedroom since these colors can help to calm down the child’s mind and better focus on the studies.

Technorati Tags: blue colors for good sleep, color of the bedrom walls, color paint for bedroom, colors for child's bedroom

It is a known fact that about 25% of men and women above 45 suffer from serious snoring and sleep apnea. At that, about 3% of those experience gasping and numerous interruptions in breathing, which eventually lead to constant sleep interruption at night. Recently, a group of British specialists carried out  a series of researches, which ended up with some disappointing findings. They registered new scientific evidence of the fact that snoring affects our brain activity and increases the risks of having a stroke.

The sleep of 13 volunteers (12 male and 1 female) with heavy forms of snoring (obstructive apnea) was under close observation of the scientists. It was found out that there are certain bio-chemical changes that occur in the brain under effect of snoring. Most likely, the brain is affected by a lack of oxygen caused even by a short interruption of breathing, which occurs in people with sleep apnea. Negative effect of such interruptions in breathing is very strong, that is why the specialists suggest to revise our attitude toward snoring and not to delay treatment of this ailment.

Moreover, obstructive apnea and hypopnea proved to cause decreased blood flow to brain, as well as create extra pressure on the chest and heart. The scientists say that every night the people with obstructive apnea have to fight for breathing with the same efforts as the ones they would have to spend for breathing with a hand over their nose and mouth. According to Dr. Kingman P. Strohl of Case Western Reserve University, reduced blood flow to the brain caused by severe snoring increases risks for stroke.

Technorati Tags: hypopnea, obstructive apnea, reduced blood flow, sleep apnea, snoring

Do you want to shed some pounds? American scientists found a good and very pleasant way to reduce weight. This technique does not require making great efforts, spending money or starving. All you need to do is just have a good 8-hour-long sleep every day without exceptions. According to the results of a recent study carried out by the experts from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle,  there is a strong connection between the duration of sleep and our BMI (Body Mass Index).

Th researchers are convinced in the fact that the shorter you sleep duration, the higher risks of being overweight you have. At that, this relationship is valid even in those situations, when people who live in constant lack of sleep do great amounts of physical activities during the day. More than 1,1 million people participated in the experiments. A group of the scientists was observing the people with various duration of sleep and came to the conclusion that increased sleep is connected with increased level of energy expenditure and is proportional to decreased BMI.

Numerous tests showed that the people who sleep less than 7-8 hours a day suffer from a certain hormonal disbalances. In particular, they have lower levels of leptin, a peptide hormone responsible for our appetite, food intake and energy balance. The experiments proved that those people who have decreased sleep duration have up to 75% increased risk of having extra weight. This research became an important step in studying the connections between our sleep and the levels of our metabolic hormones. Unfortunately, this scientific field is currently developed quite poorly.

Technorati Tags: BMI, reduce weight, sleep duration, sleep duration and BMI

According to a recent research of British specialists at the University of the West of England, women see more terrible and destructive nightmares than men. The scientists assure that this is the first serious scientific study on the differences between the dreams of men and the ones of women. However, in 1993 Joe Griffin, an Irish psychologist proposed a theory that women are more affected by their nightmares than men since modern women generally suffer about twice as much depression as men.

193 volunteers of both genders were asked to tell in details about the dreams they see. According to the research, women sleep more restlessly and tend to transfer their daily worries and troubles into their dreams. “It appears that men and women differ in the frequency of nightmares - women have more - and women perceive those nightmares to be more emotionally intense..”, says Jennifer Parker, the leader of the research. “In the emotional information’s transformation process, women are much close to reflect their unsolved problems to their dreams then men,” she added.

After a continuous study of the patterns and specifics of the women’s nightmares, Jennifer Parker came up with the idea to classify the most common types of bad dreams that today’s women see at night: a loss of someone woman loves, chasing and life threatening situations, and the effects of various unexpected problems. “I believe these results show that women carry over their waking concerns into their dream life more so than men do, and they appear to have more difficulty with ’switching off’ their concerns,” Parker comments.

Technorati Tags: nightmares, the effects of nightmares, the effects of nightmares on women