Normal sleep

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Normal sleepWe spend a third of our lives in a dream. What happens to us at this time? Let's try to figure out what it is - a normal dream: a forced disconnection from reality due to overwork of the body, which is no longer able to actively act?

Or, conversely, a purposeful action of the brain, "Invented" take a break and temporarily "Disable" body, Naslav a dream on him?

These extreme points of view, which have enjoyed a certain popularity at different times, are both incorrect. Sleep is a normal, natural state of the body, equally necessary for all systems and all organs. This human need cannot be significantly reduced by any training or mobilization of reserves.

We have experienced hobbies for all sorts of voluntary deprivations like refusing meat (vegetarianism), food (fasting therapy), or warm clothing (walking barefoot in the snow, winter swimming), but it seems that no one has ever thought to try to stop sleeping or reduce their sleep to two hours a day. But the idea looks tempting - how much time would be freed up every day. But no, the task is too unrealistic.

Sleep is an essential component of the normal daily life cycle of any person, although the need for it changes significantly with age. If the first days of life, a newborn sleeps almost all the time, then by the age of two, the child already has 15-16 hours of sleep, by four the need decreases to 12-13, and by seven to 9-11 hours. The overwhelming majority of adults are satisfied with 7-8 hours of sleep, and somewhere after 50-60 years people sleep for 5-6 hours.

Normal sleepOccasionally there are unique people who need 4 hours of sleep a day for many years (and at the same time they manage to maintain physical and mental health), but this is an exception to the rule. Significant deviations in the rhythm of the alternation of sleep and wakefulness are also rare. The annals of medical literature contain a description of the 10-15-day sleep cycle - wakefulness in a 12-year-old boy. Going without sleep for up to 6 days in a row, this child did not show any signs of fatigue, after which he fell into normal sleep for 5-10 days, confirmed by an electroencephalogram. Of course, this is also an exception. A normal person has to sleep every day.

So, sleep is necessary, natural, inevitable. Despite possible artificial changes in the rhythm of his arrival and departure, no one has been able to get rid of him of his own free will for a sufficiently long period of time. Moreover, all such attempts ended in failure, and with excessive persistence in the fight against sleep - illness or even death. Sleep deprivation torture has long been known. At one time in China there was even an execution by sleep deprivation - a person died on the eighth day ... Animals cannot exist without sleep either. Experiments on dogs have shown that 18-20 days of insomnia ends in death for them.

The most ancient theory of sleep can be traced back to legends and fairy tales. Remember how Tiny-Khavroshechka put the evil sisters to sleep? Verbal suggestion: "Sleep, peephole, sleep, another!" Already from the text of the formula itself, it is clear that the author of the tale considers closed eyes to be the reason for sleep. Simple as that! Those were happy times when people did not even think that they could close their eyes and not fall asleep, that they could wash out all night, opening and closing their eyes and cursing insomnia!

Normal sleepA similar view (it is not a person who is sleeping, his eyes are sleeping) are found in the ancient Greek legend about the hundred-eyed giant Argus. While some of his eyes rested, others were awake. Thanks to this, the giant did not feel the need for normal sleep.

In the Middle Ages, the mystical mixture of sleep and death was popular, the interpretation of dreams as signals from the other world. During sleep, the souls of the dead appear, God, angels, saints talk with people, but the devil is easiest to get close to the sleeping person. Hence the obligatory presence of religious objects in the bedroom, evening prayer, etc.

With the development of science, the concept of sleep became more complex. It has been observed that simple fatigue as a trigger for sleep is not enough. The vascular theory of sleep was born, explaining everything by the contraction of cerebral vessels and a deterioration in cerebral circulation. Oxygen starvation of brain cells began to be considered the direct cause of sleep. Imagined something kind of natural "Nightly strangulation" - not to death, but only to partial clouding of consciousness.

It happens that science, moving forward, expanding its ideas, goes through stages of delusions, creates false theories - in order to refute them later, to step over them. So it happened with the hypnotic toxin theory. During the search for the causes of vasospasm, the existence of hypnotic toxin, a poisonous substance that accumulates in the body during normal life and after reaching a certain level of concentration in the blood, causes irreparable drowsiness, was scientifically proven. At the same time, it turned out that sleep is a kind of paralysis of consciousness under the influence of sleep poison, but by no means rest. Even attempts were made to find a means to obtain immunity against hypnotic toxin and rid mankind from the "painful obsession with sleep." But nothing came of it. The hypnotic toxin myth did not last long; by repeating the experiments, it was possible to prove that the discovered toxic substances have nothing to do with normal sleep.

Then, when knowledge of the physiology of the brain deepened, they began to look for an independently existing sleep center, which, with a certain frequency, causes central (originating from the brain) inhibition of all nervous processes. But the center of sleep could not be found, and the cortical inhibitory theory of sleep was formulated; then a certain role was assigned to the subcortical formations.

According to modern concepts, sleep is a necessary phase of the daily periodization of physiological functions. The sleep phase is characterized by the relative inactivity of the higher parts of the central nervous system and is accompanied by certain changes in the work of the whole organism with a predominance of anabolism (construction) in metabolism over catabolism (destruction of its own tissues). Sleep is considered today as a behavioral act, as a part of our life, as some special state.

Normal sleepSee how carefully it is said: relative inactivity. In other words, a dormant organism can be described as an institution closed to visitors for a while. The work is not stopped, it is simply transferred to the internal rails, an inventory is being carried out, cleaning of premises, minor repairs, etc. The central nervous system does not turn off; storages, to be "alone with yourself." It is not for nothing that many great ideas were born at night, during the day they were hampered by the flow, the crush of everyday life.

A detailed study of the physiology of sleep revealed very different sleep phases in their function. In different phases, the degree of relative inactivity of individual systems of the body manifests itself in different ways. Periodically, during sleep, the activity of the central nervous system decreases, then increases again - and so many times during the night. Sleep phases are distinguished by the characteristics of the encephalogram and by eye movement during sleep ...

For most healthy people, the problem of sleep does not exist, they do not relate to it in any way, they just use the granted blessing, especially without thinking.However, the dream, which is already known that it can be deprived, immediately becomes a pleasure. A popular proverb says about this situation: "Sleep is like wealth: the more you sleep, the more you want"... And so a person begins to consciously strive to sleep as much as possible, to sleep even when he does not feel a real need. Sleep in order to sleep, not in order to wake up refreshed. Sleep like an alcoholic drinks vodka or a drug addict uses drugs. Sometimes in this way people are weak, unable to cope with life, escape from difficulties, hide under the wing of sleep and, forgetting themselves, are happy only in this way. "Sleepy doesn’t ask for bread, I don’t finish it - I’ll keep it up”... This is extreme. One.

There is another. Sometimes very busy people hate their sleep - or rather the loss of time in a dream - and begin to struggle with it. For these people who live mainly by work, it goes without saying that "Who sleeps the most, he lives the least"... Sleep becomes a hindrance in life ("Sleep a lot - don't know business"). Such people constantly hold themselves "Lack of sleep", are looking for all kinds of stimulation methods: tea, coffee, medicinal herbs (all in increasing doses). They drive sleep like an enemy. And ... they get their way - the dream goes away. Insomnia begins.

P.P.Sokolov - Victory over insomnia


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