The Facts About Sleep

Host: Sleep; one of life's true great pleasures, but for many an elusive one. If your slumber is less than it sound, it could be because you don't have all the facts. Follow a lot as we pose an Everwell challenge to mattress shoppers. This is one you definitely don't want to sleep through. Okay, let's get started. True or false; you can train yourself to get by on fewer hours of sleep? Male Speaker 1: I'd say true, because that's what I do. Female Speaker 1: Oh, no I think that's a big false. Male Speaker 2: True. Host: For the correct answer, we turn to sleep expert Dr. David Schulman. Dr. David Schulman: The answer of the question is false. Male Speaker 2: Really? Dr. David Schulman: People who get by routine on 5-6 hours of sleep may feel like they are acting at their full potential, but there is pretty good evidence suggest that they are chronically deprived as a result of functioning well below their potential. Host: May be it's your partner's snoring that's leaving you sleep deprived, which leads to our next question. Snoring can be controlled by A) Losing weight, B) cutting back on alcohol C) Sleeping on your side. Female Speaker 2: Well, everytime my fiancé snores, I just have him roll over and he just stops snoring. Female Speaker 3: Losing weight will probably help. Male Speaker 1: Sleeping on your side, I guess it will be the answer to that. Dr. David Schulman: So the answer to the question is all of the above. There are number of ways that you can somebody who is a simple snorer, treat the snoring or decrease the volume. One way is to sleep on their side. The airway shaped sort of like this. The reason they snore because the airway is collapsing and vibrating. When you are sitting on your back or lying on your back, it's very easy to collapse the airway. But when you rotate on to your side, it's much more difficult. Host: Alcohol can increase snoring by over relaxing muscles around the airway. Being overweight means extra fat around the neck and more pressure on the airway. So losing weight could help reduce the roar. If the airway closes off during sleep, that's a more serious problem called sleep apnea. Dr. David Schulman: If your bed partner has snoring but the snoring is interrupted interdentally by periods of silence or gasping, that would be very concerning for sleep apnea and you probably should have him or her see a sleep specialist for that. Host: Stay alert, here comes another question. How many times on average do people change sleep positions during the night? Male Speaker 3: Oh, ten. Female Speaker 3: 40. Male Speaker 4: Probably about a 50, 100, something like that. Dr. David Schulman: The answer to this question is 13 and this is based solely on observational studies. Host: A little tossing and turning or even waking up during the night is normal. Dr. Schulman says it's only if you find yourselves sleepy during the day that there might be a problem. Dr. David Schulman: If you are sleeping 7 and 8 hours a night and you continue to complain of daytime fatigue, that's something that should probably be evaluated by a specialist. Host: Turning to another subject. Which does not happen during sleep? A) Body temperature, drops B) Hormones are released C) Brain rests. Male Speaker 5: Hormones. Female Speaker 4: The temperature drop. Male Speaker 6: Your brain rests. Host: Bingo! Male Speaker 6: Your brain is always active unless you're dead. Dr. David Schulman: The brain does not rest during a sleep. During some phases of sleep in fact the brain is more active than it is during wakefulness. Particularly this occurs during REM phase sleep. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. This is something that occurs during normal sleep, about every 90-110 minutes. There are some people who believe that the role of REM phase sleep is to help us consolidate memory and so there is a pretty good evidence that if you go many days without REM phase sleep, your ability to remember things will be impaired. Host: No resting yet. We have one more question. On average, how many dreams do people have each night? A) Two B) five C) ten D) twenty. Female Speaker 2: I would say, ten. Female Speaker 5: I have probably 10-20 dreams a night, but I don't know if that's the average. Male Speaker 7: two or three a nigh, I am going to say, maybe five. Dr. David Schulman: The answer to this question is five. Male Speaker 7: Excellent. Dr. David Schulman: People typically dream during so called REM sleep. So depending upon how long the sleep period is, you can have four, five or six REM periods in a given night. There is some evidence that people also have dreams during other stages of sleep, but they are very uncommonly remembered, so they are not classically called dreams. Host: So what do these mattress shoppers think of our challenge? Too fluffy, too hard, or just right. Male Speaker 1: For the average person, it will be just right. But for someone sleep deprived, that's like myself, then it's probably too hard. Male Speaker 2: Oh, that's it. Host: That's it. Male Speaker 2: Okay. Host: So you can start shopping for mattresses. Male Speaker 2: Oh, I can shop for a mattress now. Okay. That's good, thank you very much.