11-10-2004, 03:05 AM
multipak Wrote:Japshin, it's pretty much the same way for me. It's so hard to find time to get good sleep during weekdays.
Research studies showed that an average adult needs at least 8 hours of sleep each night and ideally 9 hours to be fully alert and be 100% of their capacity. I don’t think most people get that. It’s scary to see many people on highways doze off in their cars while driving to work during morning rush hours.
Actually it varies from person to person. Some people only need 4 hours of sleep. I saw a real interesting program not to long ago about sleeping and dreaming. The use of sleep still hasn't been proven. Scientists don't know why we need to sleep. There's no physiological change that takes place when we sleep so its not like our mustles need rest or something. They asume its so we can process all the information we got that day. Only reason we get tired at night is because a substance gets released in out bloodstream when it gets dark outside (same substance thats used in popular sleep drugs).
Also they made an interesting claim that people could learn themselfs to only need 2 to 4 hours of sleep a night. It seems we go through ceveral cycles in our sleep. You have the first fase (don't remember name), then follows the well known REM fase and when that ends the whole cycle starts over again. Normal people have about 4/5 cycles a night but if you can train yourself to wake up exactly after the first cycle has finshed you should feel as rested as when you had a full nights sleep. Also you when you feel really tired after a full nights sleep there's a good chance you got woken up while in the REM fase. Interesting stuff.