21 Interesting Facts About Sleep

1. God designed sleep to be an essential drive in nature. All nature sleeps. Even trees sleep in the winter months.

2. The top four sleep killers are stress, anxiety/worry, depression and caffeine consumption.

3. Though millions of people walk around tired every day (about 62% of us!), many of us will not do anything about it because we tend to associate sleep with laziness.

4. 85% of the U.S. population drinks caffeinated-laced beverages daily.

5. Three-hundred million cups of coffee are consumed in the U.S. each day, making it the second most commonly traded commodity in the world.

6. I am currently drinking my second cup of caffeinated-laced beverage this morning.

7. Sleep deficits have been implicated in many major public catastrophes, including the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger, and the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom.

8. Two major sleep destroyers in marriage are failure to resolve conflicts before bedtime and failure to synchronize sleep patterns.

9. About 80% of wives cannot sleep after an argument.

10. I think my husband actually sleeps better after an argument, which is why I sometimes accidentallyonpurpose kick him, just to even out those statistics.

11. Sleepiness while driving a vehicle causes more than 30,000 accidents a year and more than 3 million disabling injuries.

12. In 1960, the average number of hours an American slept a night was 8. Today it is 6.7.

13. About 43 million prescriptions for sleeping pills were filled in the U.S. in 2005.

14. In children, each additional hour of sleep decreases the child’s chances of becoming obese by 9%.

15. Not getting enough sleep can deprive your brain of oxygen.

16. During sleep, glands and muscles rejuvenate, growth hormone is released, damaged cells repair themselves, and newly-learned information is synthesized and saved into long-term memory.

17. If you are sleep-deprived, you have up to seven days to “catch up” on your sleep to avoid long-term effects of your sleep deprivation.

18. Adolescents who watch more than 3 hours of TV a day have a significantly elevated risk for sleep problems in early adulthood, regardless of age, gender or home factors.

19. Research shows that napping is healthful, improves memory, increases vigor and decreases late afternoon lethargy.

20. Most people are embarrassed to say they nap because they think it sounds wasteful and self-indulgent.

21. I nap almost every day and I’m not embarrassed to tell you this. Probably because I am both wasteful and self-indulgent.