15 Sleep Facts You Can Take to Bed

Here are 15 sleep facts that you may not have known, but should find interesting and might find helpful.

15 Sleep Facts

1. A normal healthy sleeper moves 40 to 60 times a night.
2. Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder that involves excessive and potentially fatal snoring.
3. Women are more likely to be disturbed by noises than a man. They tend to dream in color; his dreams are less vivid. Women are more likely to have nightmares, but he’s more likely to be plagued by dreams related to guilt and failure.
4. Tuna, milk, cottage cheese, baked beans, turkey, and eggs are good food for late-night snacks. They contain the amino acid tryptophan, called “nature’s sleeping pill.”
5. Everyone dreams several times a night during REM (rapid eye movement) states. Most people have four or five dreams a night.
6. Coffee after dinner can keep you awake for up to six hours, so eat early!
7. You can sleep better if you exercise in the late afternoon.
8. The most common sleep problem in the US is daytime drowsiness.
9. Teenagers need the most sleep; athletes need quality over quantity of sleep; older people’s sleep needs to diminish over time.
10. People who feel most energetic late in the evening and can barely get out of bed in the morning have body temperatures that peak at different times a day than other people’s do. They take longer to warm up and feel like they are wide awake-a basic biological difference from “morning” people, whose temperatures rise early in the day.
11. Two people sleeping in a traditional full-size bed each have only as much room as a baby’s crib would provide.
12. The holder of the record for most beds is Louis XIV of France, 413.
13. The ideal room temperature for a good night’s sleep is the mid-60 degrees.
14. Somnus was the Roman god. A somnambulist is a sleepwalker and a somniloquist is a sleep talker.
15. Sleep research indicates that short sleepers – those who sleep less than the average seven to eight hours a night- tend to be more extroverted, efficient, ambitious, and self-confident.