Wouldn't it be nice at times to just live in a country of sleep?
Knowing full well that we'd always wake up the next morning feeling fully rested, recovered and ready to take on our day.As someone who has spent the last 20 years of my life as a 5 am riser, I wonder if my average 6 hours a night sleep is healthy or not. In asking this question, it begged more questions than answers.
Questions like, why do we sleep? What are the benefits of sleep? Is there a trick to getting a better night's sleep?
All questions I attempt to discuss with the help of a couple TED talk sleep experts and a few posts written earlier this year.
TED answers the questions, "Why do we sleep?" and "Why do we need a good night sleep?"
Russell Foster is a circadian neuroscientist: He studies the sleep cycles of the brain. And he asks: What do we know about sleep? Not a lot, it turns out, for something we do with one-third of our lives. In this talk, Foster shares three popular theories about why we sleep, busts some myths about how much sleep we need at different ages -- and hints at some bold new uses of sleep as a predictor of mental health.
http://youtu.be/LWULB9Aoopc
The brain uses a quarter of the body's entire energy supply, yet only accounts for about two percent of the body's mass. So how does this unique organ receive and, perhaps more importantly, rid itself of vital nutrients? New research suggests it has to do with sleep.
At TEDMED 2014, neuroscientist Jeff Iliff illuminates a newly discovered, critical function of the brain during sleep, a natural cleansing system that keeps toxic proteins at bay.
http://youtu.be/b8uvrdBrdR4
Wanting to improve your sleep? Here's a few posts to help you
