Why Sleep?

                    There are a few things that most if not all humans need to live on to the next day. Two necessities that come to mind are sleeping and eating. I personally am a much bigger fan of sleep than I am food, but that's just me. When I think about sleep, I can't seem to wrap my mind around the idea that so much goes on, while we aren't even awake. Our bodies are steadily at work while we are sleeping. Hence why sleeping is very important. But, not just sleeping in itself. I say this because sleeping too much can be nearly as unhealthy as sleeping too little.
                     After a few years of just merely being interested in the concept of sleep it self, I've looked into how people fall asleep, the stages of sleep, what happens once we fall asleep, and also what causes us to wake up. All that among other thoughts like, why it's so difficult to go to sleep sometimes and why in other situations sleeping seems almost involuntary. It mostly has to do with what happens while your awake. Let me explain this a bit further.
                     Let's say you go to a concert to see your favorite band, then after wards you go to get some ice cream on the way home. Once you're around the corner from your house you hit a bunny, but you keep going. You finally get home to see that there was no blood on the car so it was like it never happened. You shrug before going to unlock the front door. You notice something is missing, your house keys. After recalling that you brother had changed the door knob cause the other was faulty you remember that you had left the new keys on the kitchen counter. You look into the window to see the keys on the counter mocking you. Then you reach for your phone to call your brother. Of course he doesn't answer. You try and call him again, your phone dies.

                       Rather unfortunate situation I know, but not to worry, your best friend drove past your house cause you left your new concert t-shirt in her bag and she lives close by. You sleep over her house till morning and you charge your phone there finally getting in contact with your brother in the morning. But when you wake up, you thank your best friend and you tell her over breakfast about the dream you had once you fell asleep at her house. 

                       "There was this huge crowd and everyone was excited and happy, we were on stage and our band was called the 'Raging Bunnies' weird name I know. Then at the end of the concert we gave everyone free ice cream and out of no where comes this gigantic bunny. It stomps through the ice cream dispensers and picks me up like King Kong did the blonde lady, or was she brunette? Any way the bunny picks me up and right before I think this is where my life ends, the bunny throws me into this floating cage, locks me in and jingles the keys in my face.... then I wake up."

                        If someone were to take a closer look into the situation, most likely that person would notice the correlation between what happened in real life, versus the dream the person had after the event. Obviously the person felt guilt after hitting the bunny and felt like karma had paid them a visit with the whole locked out situation. The setting of the dream may have merely been because those were the last book mark type events that took place right before the person went to sleep. 

                     

                       
                         Believe it or not, that's how most dreams work. Your brain takes the ideas and thoughts and memories that resonated with you most through out that day, and jumbles it all up into an endearing story line for you to drift through as you sleep. Understandably some people just see or remember static when they wake up, but usually there is something that happened in your sleep before that moment that may have just faded away.

                           There are various phases or stages of sleep. There's the message your mind sends to your body, that you do indeed require rest. You start to feel a bit heavier, you attention span shortens and you start decided whether you will submit to this feeling or fight against it. If you accept the drowsy feeling that is now overwhelming your body, stage two begins. You fall into a stable sleep and your body start to produce chemicals that will help you be able to stay that way for a bit. By stage three you body has fallen into a deep sleep which is only a fraction of the night. Hopefully, if you continue to go undisturbed, you are able to reach a state of REM sleep. The best sleep in my opinion. This for me, is when the fun begins. Your brain activity is high and intense, hence the dreaming that tends to happen.

                             Sleeping is such a cool concept to me, one of the main reasons being that we do indeed tend to dream. That in itself is amazing to me because some dreams are very telling. There is even a concept called lucid dreaming, where, usually with practice, you are able to control the elements of your dream. Where it's the color of the couch the whether or to prevent yourself from going over a cliff, lucid dreaming to me is by far the greatest thing since sliced bread.

                             As fun and exciting all this sounds, as I said before there is such a thing as sleeping too much. Sleeping to much or even just staying in bed to much, restricts your body from being able to access many parts of the brain that are usually only activated when you are in motion or partaking in certain activities. Which another reason why when people fall into comas or pass out, doctors get very concerned. As I mentioned a bit earlier a lot of what goes down when you're sleep, is because of what happened when you were up. What is important is a restful sleep, not particularly a long one.

                            But on the flip side, it isn't to healthy to go without sleep either. Sleep deprivation can cause some serious issues, that are sometimes irreversible. Which is also why sleep is important.

                            

                              Have you ever noticed that when someone close to you get sleepy sometimes they tend to act a little different? May be they are just a bit more snappy than usual, or not as patent as they usually are. Sort of similar to when a person get hangry, a word that means, hungry and angry. Well, I believe that some people tend to get slangry as well. Sleepy and angry. If you notice someone you care for getting this way, it is usually because they are ignoring the signals shooting between their brain and their body that is messaging and alerting them that they should be sleeping soon. 

                             

                              There are some people who may actually want to get to sleep, but can't because they may be suffering from anxiety or a restless mind. Typically if someone is in this situation, it is not strange to see them try and gain some assistance if they are unable to fall asleep naturally on their own. 

By this, I mean sleeping pills, or sleeping medication. 

Some people even go for the booze to calm their nerves to help them sleep. Just like every other thing on the planet, there are dangers to using theses aids to help you fall asleep. 

Alcohol tends to effect the deepness of REM sleep, which as I said before, is the best part. You don't want to mess with REM sleep.

                             All this to say that there is a healthy balance between over sleeping and sleep deprivation. Sad to say, but I am guilty of it too, some people sleep to get away from the lives that they return to when they wake up. Doing this too often may cause concern for the loved ones around you. Over sleeping is a sign of depression, but generally, I just love to sleep. Dreaming, lucid dreaming is really fun. But as I mentioned before it's really best once you've been awake for some time. This is a balance each person has to configure for themselves. All to often people are found up in the early am for no particular reason, and others sleep till the late after noon. 

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                           In order to achieve the best sleep, try to wake up and lay down around the same time each night. In this way, your body will become accustomed to the rhythm you have created, ad you will be more likely to have a restful sleep and will be able to awake refreshed. Try to turn off all the things that cause your brain to be hyper, like screens and loud noises. Taking into mind some of these small changes will make a big difference in your sleeping pattern.                          

More info on Sleep Deprivation
More info on Sleep Depression