- Humans spend a third of their life sleeping. That's about 25 years.
- Parents of new babies miss out on 6 months worth of sleep in the first 2 years of their child's life.
- The record for the longest period without sleep is 11 days.
- An experiment in 1998 found that a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain's sleep-wake clock.
- Sleeping less than 7 hours each night reduces your life expectancy.
- Only one-half of a dolphin's brain goes to sleep at a time.
- Some Deaf People Make Sign Language in Their Sleep.
- Lack of sleep can cause weight gain of 2 pounds (0.9 kg) in under a week.
- Before alarm clocks were invented, there were "knocker-ups" who went tapping on client's windows with long sticks until they were awake.
- A snail can sleep for 3 years.
- It's impossible to sneeze while sleeping.
- Most people can survive for up to 2 months without eating, but people can only live up to 11 days without sleeping.
- Sleeping on the job is acceptable in Japan, as it's viewed as exhaustion from working hard.
- Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don't drift away from each other.
- The ability of the brain to tell what's important from what's not is compromised by lack of sleep.
- People experience better sleep during the new moon and worse sleep during a full moon, a study found.
- Many Tibetan monks sleep upright.
- Half of the pilots surveyed in the UK admitted to having fallen asleep while flying a passenger plane.
- Cats sleep for 70% of their lives.
- Believing You've Slept Well, Even If You Haven't, Improves Performance.
- Memories take hold better during sleep.
- Horses can sleep standing.
- Rabbits often sleep with their eyes open.
- John Lennon sometimes liked to sleep in an old coffin.
- Later school start times improve sleep and daytime functioning in adolescents, a study says.
- In 1849, David Atchison became President of the United States for just one day, and he spent most of the day sleeping.
- You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
- The occurrence of nightmares could be due to heart conditions, migraine, sleep deprivation and beta blockers.
- Sleep deprivation affects the brain in multiple ways that can impair judgment and slow reaction.
- Neuroscientists believe babies don't dream for the first few years of their life.
- Women experience significantly more nightmares than men and have more emotional dreams, a research found.
- A baby's brain can use up to 50% of the total glucose supply, which may help explain why babies need so much sleep.
- During WW1, a Hungarian man was shot in the frontal lobe, making it impossible for him to fall asleep. He continued to live a full, sleepless life.
- Giraffes only need 5 to 30 minutes of sleep in a 24-hour period.
- Morphine derives its name from Morpheus, the god of sleep and dreaming in Greek Mythology, for its tendency to cause sleep.
- Koalas sleep up to 20 hours a day.
- In darkness, most people eventually adjust to a 48-hour cycle: 36 hours of activity followed by 12 hours of sleep. The reasons are still unclear.
- The chances of us eating even one spider in our sleep throughout our lifetime is close to 0%.
- 8% of Americans sleep naked.
- The average person in France sleeps 8.83 hours per day, the most in the developed world.
- 40% of adult Americans have always slept on the same side of the bed.
- Drinking caffeine in the evening delays our brain's release of melatonin and interrupts our circadian rhythm by as much as 40 minutes.
- While you sleep, your brain filters out noises that might wake you up if it doesn't think you're in danger.
- We lose over a pound of weight during sleep by exhaling.
- Dysania is the state of finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning.
- Depression can cause you to dream up to 3 to 4 times more than you normally would.
- Somniphobia is the fear of falling asleep.
- The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
- People who procrastinate may be more likely to have insomnia, a study found.
- People who frequently take naps tend to die younger than those who don't, a study found.
- It's illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on in North Dakota.
- 73% of college students report sleep problems, a study found.
- Trees "sleep" at night, relaxing their branches after dawn and perking them up before sunrise.
- 3 AM is when most Americans are sleeping (95.1%). Conversely, 6 PM is when most Americans are awake (97.5%).
- People ascrib more importance to pleasant dreams about a person they like than a person they don't like.
- A plane-crash dream is more likely to affect travel plans than either thinking about a crash or a government warning, a study says.
- Violent dreams may be an early sign of brain disorders down the line, including Parkinson's disease and dementia.
- People in Britain who wake in the middle of the night are most likely to do it at 3:44 a.m.
- Studies show that napping at work can boost your productivity.
- People who play video games are more likely to be lucid dreamers, having control over their actions in dreams, than those who don't.
- Research has found that the more visually creative a person is, the lower the quality of their sleep.
- According to a study, each kid in a woman's household increases her risk of getting insufficient sleep by 46 percent.
- Night owls are more likely to suffer from nightmares, surveys suggest.
- Wealthy ancient Egyptians slept with neck supports rather than pillows to preserve their hairstyles.
- 75% of couples go to bed at different times at least four times a week, a UK study found.
- If you deprive a fruit fly or a fish of sleep, it will try to catch up the next day.
- To your brain, one sleepless night is the cognitive equivalent of being legally drunk.
- Researchers from NASA say the perfect nap lasts for 26 minutes.
- 1% to 3% of the world population are short sleepers, people who live happily on just a few hours of sleep per night.
- Lack of sleep may shrink your brain.
- 42% of of highly-mobile and regular home workers worldwide suffer from insomnia, as opposed to 29% of regular office workers, according to a UN study.
- Sleeping under a weighted blanket can help reduce insomnia and anxiety.
- Blind people are twice as likely to smell things in their dreams as sighted people.
- 75% of Americans dreamt almost always in black and white in 1940, while today is just 12%.
