How You're Sleeping Says a Lot About You....

While you are weighing out the advantages and disadvantages of sleeping on a warm comfortable waterbed,  here are some fun facts about sleep in general!  

Did you know that depending on your age, people require a certain amount of sleep to function properly?  The brain is the master controller of the body, and while a person sleeps the brain has a chance to recharge.  There are other important body functions that go on while asleep and are more effective during sleep.  For example, your body releases hormones while asleep to help achieve balance, and body cells perform major repairs.  Infants require about 16 hours of sleep. No wonder babies cry, then eat, then sleep most of the day away.  By the time your teenage years come to a close you will only require half as much sleep as a baby.  In fact, by the time you are approaching retirement, your body will only require 6 hours of sleep! 

While we are sleeping, dreams often enter our subconscious.  It is estimated that men have dreams that involve other men well over 50% of the time whereas women have dreams involving both genders equally.  Whether or not you remember a face in a crowd, or at a concert, or in the park as you pass them by, researchers have concluded that faces that enter our dreams are all faces that we have caught a glimpse of at one point in time!  Did you know that it is estimated that more than 10% of people dream in black and white?  How about the fact that even blind people can still see images in their dreams?  Since dreams are the norm, generally those who don’t have some sort of personality disorder!

It is believe by psychologist and psychiatrists alike that sleeping position can help in determining your personality!  With over 40% of people sleeping in the fetal position, it has shown that these personalities are very warm with an open heart even though initially they may seem brusque.  Other sleeping position such as the log, the soldier, and the starfish all point to personalities from being social butterflies, to being reserved, to being great listeners!  Switching subjects, did you know that 1 out of every 4 married couples sleep in separate beds?  I wonder if it has anything to do with clashing sleep positions?  It is very hard for a fetus to share the bed with a starfish!

The next time you struggle to fall asleep remember these little facts.  Researchers have concluded that a person can survive at least two weeks without food, but it can take as little as 10 sleepless nights and days to kill you!  Dolphins have adapted to sleeping with half of their brain shut down, and while sleeping, the other half helps with its breathing!  Some people have been known to do some extremely unruly things while asleep, and thus completely unaware of their actions!   

Whether you are a koala bear which sleeps an estimated 22 hours every day or a giraffe which averages about 2 hours a day, we still all require sleep.  Within 5 minutes of waking up, we have forgotten as much as 50% of our dreams and within 10 minutes the dreams have all but faded away!  I guess if you were a koala bear, you would be dreaming so much that it would be frightening to want to remember it all each and every day.  I hope you have enjoyed these tidbits of information as you ponder over a waterbed mattress or a conventional one.