What happens to the body during sleep
That is no secret that an adult should sleep on average about 8 hours a day. But not everyone wonders what exactly happens to our body while we sleep and what will happen if a person does not sleep for at least a few days.
In the 1960s, quite an interesting experiment was carried out. Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old student, did not sleep for 11 days and 24 minutes. At the same time, he did not use any medications that helped him stay awake.
Here are the results of the experiment:
1st day
The subject woke up early in the morning and the experiment began.
2nd day
By this time Randy was absent-minded.
The most difficult thing for him was not to sleep at night. He was assisted by his friends, as well as by Dr. Dement to keep that from happening. At night they drove around with him, played basketball, listened to music.
3rd day
Gardner became moody and could not repeat even a simple chant.
4th day
The young man began to hallucinate.
The final week
The long absence of sleep was accompanied by frequent hallucinations, dizziness, and even speech disorders. One day, Randy had a vision of an ordinary wall turning into a forest path.
This experiment confirms how important sleep is for our health. By the way, everything got back to normal with Randy Gardner. As soon as he slept for 14 hours, the hallucinations and dizziness were gone.
In order to understand what important processes take place during sleep, you need to know that our sleep consists of two stages:
1. Light sleep (lasts 20 minutes)
The body is already asleep, but the brain continues to be active.
2. Deep sleep (75% of total sleep time)
It takes about 20 minutes to completely fall asleep. Then waking a person from deep sleep can be difficult.
Then we wake up again, as it were, and the light sleep stage starts again. The same thing all through the night. On average, about 5 of these cycles occur during 8 hours of sleep.
And here are some vital processes that happen within our body during a night's sleep:
- The efficiency of the brain is reduced by 40%, the information accumulated during the day is processed
- The muscle system relaxes and recovers
- The pulse and blood pressure decrease, and blood flow to the torso and extremities increases
- Damaged skin cells are regenerated and new ones are made
- Body temperature decreases
- The metabolism slows down but the body still needs energy to work
- The respiratory system relaxes
- The endocrine system produces a very important hormone – melatonin
So don't underestimate the importance of a good night's sleep. Especially now that you know what vital recovery processes happen at that particular time. And it is also important to realize that sleep must be included in the period from 10 p.m to 5 a.m. It is at this time that all the above mentioned processes take place.
