Sleep Magic
25 + 7 Things Your Body Does While Sleeping
Sleeping without a doubt is a necessary activity for us all. It’s part of our own survival and for many it’s their favourite thing to do. We’ve done plenty of research on sleep and have uncovered all kinds of benefits that sleep can do for us.
Most of which have uncovered the physical and mental benefits. However today, we want to prove to you that sleep is a little more active than we think.
After all, we think that sleep is just an activity where you rest, relax, and are inactive during the whole process. That isn’t the case at all when you consider the things we do while sleeping.
1 Temperature Drops
While the temperature in our rooms won’t change, we do experience a drop in body temperature while we are sleeping. This is because our muscles become inactive which in turn causes our body to burn less calories.
2 Our Eyes Still Move
Though most sleep with our eyes closed, they still move around in our sleep. In fact, depending on what sleep stage we’re in, our eyes will move in various ways. First, they roll and once we’re in deeper sleep, they will dart about and twitch. The reason most won’t know this is we don’t remember this.
3 Body Jerks
Quick twitches or sudden hypnic jerks are associated in the early stages of sleep. These are quite harmless, however they could get strong enough to wake us up.
4 Paralyzed Muscles
Every time we sleep, we undergo paralysis to some extent. Why we do this is because if our muscles were allowed to move freely, we’d be able to act our dreams. This is dangerous for a wide variety of reasons so it’s a good thing our body has them paralyzed during that time.
5 But Not Our Throat
While our muscles get paralyzed, one that doesn’t is our throat. This makes sense since we still need it to breathe which we do throughout the sleeping process. That being said, our throat does relax which causes our throat to narrow. This act may be one of the contributing factors to snoring.
6 Skin Repairs
The top layer of our skin is made of packed dead cells that are in a constant state of shedding during the day. While we go to sleep, our skin’s metabolic rate speeds up and several of our body’s cells increase production while dropping breakdown of proteins.
Because proteins are necessary for our growth and repair of damaged skin, we’re repairing our skin and beauty in a sense. This fact may be why some people refer to sleep as beauty sleep.
7 Drops Useless Information
The human mind is bombarded with information on a daily basis. Some of it will shape our lives moving forward, while some of it is completely useless. To ensure that we’re keeping the appropriate bits of information, our brain goes through a process every day where it does a cleaning of the information.
We will retain some of the information, but most of the information we’ll forget about in time.
8 Releases Hormones
Repairing our skin does make sense especially when you know that our body releases hormones. During slow-wave sleep, our body secretes various growth hormones that stimulate growth, cell reproduction and cell regeneration.
9 Our Immune System Is Supercharged
When you get sick, one of the best things we can do is get sleep. Not only that but sleep deprivation can lead to a weakened immune system. These facts further prove the fact that sleeping is good for us because our immune system is at its strongest when in this state.
10 Loses Weight
When we’re sleeping, our body is entering a state where we’re breathing out humid air and are perspiring. While we are doing this throughout the day, that weight loss is negated by us drinking water and eating.
As a result, since we’re not eating while we’re sleeping, we’re effectively losing weight. This is why dieticians and gyms encourage us to get an appropriate amount of sleep. After all, what we do outside of the gym is where we lose the most weight.
11 Dry Mouth
The reason saliva is in our mouth is for eating purposes. Since we’re not eating during our sleep, our body shuts down the flow of saliva. As a result, our mouth is pretty dry when we wake up in the morning. Not to mention we get a craving to drink some kind of beverage first thing in the morning too.
12 We Grind Teeth
About 5% of the world has a condition called sleep bruxism. This is the act of grinding your teeth while you are sleeping. This can lead to us damaging our teeth over time. Scientists have yet to pinpoint what causes this condition, though some think it’s a form of stress relief.
13 We Grow Taller
Yes there are growth spurts, but even us folk who have long past those growth spurts experience height growth. It’s been discovered that we grow several centimetres taller in the morning only to lose those centimetres by the evening.
Why this is the case is because we often sleep in a horizontal position. This allows our spine to extend and the weight of our body doesn’t press down on it.
14 Lower Blood Pressure
When we are sleeping, we experience “nocturnal dipping” This is where our blood pressure will drop by 5 or 7 points when we get a good night’s sleep.
15 We Dream
Even if we don’t remember whether we are dreaming or not, we still experience dreams on a daily basis when we sleep. Dreams often occur in the first stage of sleep where our brain is most active, however most of the dreams we go through are quickly forgotten.
16 We Could Sleepwalk
Sleepwalking is mid-sleep activities that entail behaviours, emotions, perceptions or dreams that occur during transitions of sleep stages. Sleepwalking is mostly harmless of course, but there have been some instances where people have hurt themselves doing this.
17 Or Sleep Talk
As the name suggests, some people talk during their sleep. This can range from a wide variety of things. Some of it can be mumbling but some people can be shouting or making long and inarticulate speeches too. These talks can occur at various points during the sleeping process.
18 Sexual Arousal
Men call it morning wood, but ladies can experience this in their own way. Why this is the case is because we all experience sexual stimulus while sleeping. While we are sleeping, our brain is still active during our sleep.
And since our brain needs oxygen, our blood flow is also going to increase. This in turn leads to the swelling of genitalia.
19 We Make Big Decisions
Studies show that while we are sleeping, our brain is processing information and making decisions while we are sleeping. This makes sense when you consider the fact our brain is making connections and discoveries while we’re sleeping.
20 Passes Gas
There’s a lot of things our bodies do while we sleep as you can tell, but one of the grosser things is that our sphincter muscles loosen a little. This is enough for gasses in our intestines to slip out.
The good news is that our sense of smell drops while sleeping so if we fart, no one is going to smell it.
21 Goes On A Cleanse
Over the course of the day, our body builds up toxins. Those toxins release in time, but usually during our sleep. This makes sense since experts have noted that those who are sleep-deprived often go a little crazy.
22 Stops Breathing
Another sleeping condition several people experience is sleep apnea. The disorder is best described as the individual pausing in breathing or experiencing shallow breathing during sleep. These pauses can last between a few seconds to several minutes. Naturally, these disrupt the sleeping of that person since our brain is still active and it needs oxygen.
23 Wakes Up Without Realizing It
One thing we don’t realize while sleeping is that we wake up at various points during the night. The thing is these periods are so brief, we often don’t remember them. They normally occur during transition periods between the sleep stages.
24 Hears Explosions
A rare sleep disorder is the exploding head syndrome. No this isn’t a case where our head literally explodes, but when we sleep, it can feel like our head will explode. Going into detail, the symptom entails the person hearing a loud, but imagined noise. Recipients have described these loud sounds as bombs exploding, gunshots, or a cymbal crashing.
These sounds can be experienced when trying to fall asleep or during waking up. The syndrome is physically painless, but it doesn’t take away from the fact it’s frightening.
25 Pain Tolerance Increases
The last thing that our body does while we’re sleeping is raise our pain tolerance. When we’re sleeping, our body is completely relaxed. Pair that up with the paralyzed muscles, our nerves become paralyzed as a process.
Because of those things, our body can’t send the appropriate pain signals to our brain. On top of that, our other senses are turned off too. We can’t hear, smell, see or feel while sleeping.
Additional 7 amazing things that happen to your body while you sleep
Sleeping is important for our physical and mental health.
There’s a lot we don’t know about sleep. Questions like why we have sleep cycles, why we dream and why humans even need sleep in the first place are ones scientists are still finding exact answers to.
But one thing’s for certain: when we sleep, and sleep well, we feel better physically and mentally, and perform better during the day. Read on to find out some of the things we do know about sleep and why it’s so important for our bodies and minds.
1. Your brain sorts and processes the day’s information
Don’t be fooled into thinking that when you’re asleep your brain has shut off too. Your brain is actually quite busy while you sleep, sorting and storing information from the day. This process is particularly important for creating long term memories1, as your brain consolidates all the information it’s picked up during the day and files it away for later use.
2. Hormones flood your body
There are a number of different hormones2 released during sleep, all with different purposes. Melatonin, released by the pineal gland3, controls your sleep patterns. Levels increase at night time, making you feel sleepy. While you’re sleeping, your pituitary gland4 releases growth hormone, which helps your body to grow and repair itself.
3. Your sympathetic nervous system chills out
During sleep, your sympathetic nervous system – which controls your fight or flight response – gets a chance to relax. Studies have shown5 that when we’re deprived of sleep, sympathetic nervous system activity increases, which is also mirrored by an increase in blood pressure. Scientists studying coronary disease are investigating whether there’s a relationship between decreased sleep duration and increased risk of heart disease6.
4. Cortisol levels lower
Levels of cortisol, often called the stress hormone, decreases during the first few hours of sleep before rising to peak soon after you wake up. This helps makes you feel perky when you wake up and switches on your appetite.
Sleep is important for everyone at every age.
5. Your muscles paralyse
While asleep, you cycle through periods of non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM) and rapid eye movement sleep (REM). It’s during REM sleep that we have the most vivid dreams.
During this stage, your muscles are temporarily paralysed, meaning you can’t move. Some scientists think this might be so that you don’t physically act out your dreams.
6. Anti-Diuretic Hormone (ADH) helps you not have to pee
Ever wondered why you have to go to the toilet to pee every couple of hours during the day, but can sleep a whole eight without heading to the loo? Thank ADH, an anti-diuretic hormone released by the brain7 under a circadian rhythm which switches off the need to urinate so often overnight.
7. Your immune system releases inflammation fighting cytokines
While you’re sleeping, your immune system releases a type of small proteins called cytokines. If you’re sick or injured, these cytokines help your body fight inflammation, infection and trauma. Without enough sleep, your immune system might not be able to function at its best.
Is your family getting enough good quality sleep?
Your body does a lot of important work while you’re asleep. Good sleep is vital for your physical and mental health, so if you’re having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, not feeling rested when you wake up or feeling tired during the day, talk to your doctor about what you can do to improve your sleep or whether there’s an underlying health issue or sleep disorder causing your lack of Zs.