How long does human sleep last - a study of dreams

Why do I have dreams every night?

Healthy sleep charges a person with energy for the whole day.

Many people wonder why people dream every day? Every day a person lives is filled with some events that the subconscious remembers. Every day you need to think about what the brain actually does during sleep. The more emotional a person is, the more often dreams come to him in the arms of morphine. This is because even after falling asleep, emotional people continue to worry about what happened, admire, or, on the contrary, be disappointed.

How many dreams do you have per night?

How many dreams does a person have per night? A person can have many dreams in one night. Moreover, they can be completely different. Continuing each other or completely different, colored and black and white. Science believes that a person sees dreams in the stage of quickly falling asleep. This phase has not yet been fully studied, but it is known that in this phase the brain hardly sleeps, it is actively working. In one dream cycle, over a dozen such phases can occur, their duration being up to 15 minutes. As mentioned above, dreams can be different, even if the phases follow one after another.

During dreams, the conscious and subconscious minds “solve” various problems in turn. This means that the more active the life of the sleeper and the higher the emotional background, the greater the likelihood of seeing several dreams.

Let's take a closer look at sleep cycles. The first dream cycle lasts from 40 minutes to 1 hour. Approximately 9.5 cycles fit into 8 hours. By the way, having woken up during a period of unfinished sleep, the awakened person risks being in a broken and sleep-deprived state all day. This one in backgammon is called “Get up on the wrong foot.” Those who wake up at the end of the cycle always feel excellent. In people who prefer to go to bed and wake up at the same time, the body adapts, shortens or increases the cycle, so that by the time they wake up the next cycle is completed.

There is fast and slow sleep. In the short term (duration from up to 15 minutes) the dream occurs. Moreover, both phases of sleep are important for the body. One person can get enough sleep in a few minutes, another in a longer time.

Moreover, during the experimental study, the following was revealed: people who were woken up several times at the beginning of the fast phase, over time, the duration of the phase increased at the expense of the slow one. A maximum extension of one and a half hours was noted.

How to increase the duration of deep sleep?

There are many ways to increase the duration of this stage of sleep. Let's look at the most effective of them.

Method No. 1. Reconsider your lifestyle

A sedentary and sedentary lifestyle negatively affects the quality of sleep. To make deep sleep last longer, start taking care of yourself: give up alcoholic drinks, cigarettes, fatty, spicy, sweet and high-calorie foods, exercise regularly, spend more time in the fresh air, ventilate the bedroom before bed.

Very often, sources of noise and other distractions prevent us from fully resting. If you live in a noisy place and you have no way to influence the noise level, then buy earplugs.

Method No. 2. Get rid of bright light sources

Bright light sources negatively affect the quality of sleep. TVs, computers, smartphones, tablets and other gadgets have become a part of our lives. But if you want to increase the duration of delta sleep so that you feel alert and rested in the morning, then get rid of these bright light sources at least 1.5-2 hours before going to bed.

Are you used to falling asleep with your phone or tablet in your hands? Can't sleep without TV? Give up these bad habits, otherwise your body will not be able to fully prepare for a night's rest.

Method number 3. Go to bed at the same time every night

Experts recommend that people who want to increase the duration of deep sleep should fall asleep at the same time. Train yourself to go to bed at the same time on weekdays and weekends.

Once you get used to the regime, you will be surprised to notice that your sleep problems have disappeared without a trace! People who have learned to go to the kingdom of Morpheus at the same time note that now in the morning they feel much better and more energetic than when they did not have such a habit.

Method number 4. Avoid late dinners and workouts

Life in the modern world dictates its own conditions and not always throughout the day we have the opportunity to eat normally or go to the gym. But it has long been proven that late dinners and going to the gym after work negatively affect the duration of deep sleep.

In order for your body to fully rest and recover at night, you should not actively exercise before bed or overeat at night. Therefore, avoid training and high-calorie foods 2 to 3 hours before going to bed.

Method No. 5. Introduce magnesium-containing foods into your diet

Magnesium not only normalizes the functioning of the nervous system and helps the body produce energy, but also has a positive effect on the duration and quality of deep sleep. Therefore, be sure to include plant foods in your diet that contain this beneficial microelement.

Nutritionists advise eating wheat bran, beans, walnuts, spinach, pumpkin seeds, almonds, peanuts, dried dates, sesame seeds, because these foods contain large quantities of magnesium.

Method number 6. Do not be nervous

The funny saying that all diseases arise from nerves, and some from love, is not as far from the truth as we would like it to be. The more nervous and worried we are, the more negatively this affects not only our general health, but also the quality of deep sleep.

How can you reduce the amount of stress if you have to live not in a good fairy tale, but in a reality that is far from perfect? This can be done through meditation. Meditation practices help not only calm the mind and organize the senses, but also increase the duration of deep sleep.

Method No. 7. Take a hot bath

If you take a hot bath before going to bed, you can significantly increase the duration of deep sleep. 30 - 40 minutes before you are supposed to go to bed, fill the bath with hot water. Turn out the bright lights, light candles, turn on relaxing music.

Keeping your back straight, sit in the bath. Sit in this position for 10 - 15 seconds, and then slowly and smoothly lower yourself into the water. Relax completely, close your eyes and think about something pleasant. If there are no pleasant thoughts in your head, then just start breathing with your stomach. During each inhalation, mentally say some pleasant and soothing word. Repeat this word as you exhale. Feel how your body is filled with peace and tranquility.

Do this for 10 to 15 minutes, then go to bed as soon as possible. Sound, calm and high-quality deep sleep is guaranteed to you!

Every night I have similar dreams

Do you constantly see similar events and the same images, patterns of behavior in your dreams? Try to understand what the subconscious is pointing to. Look for a problem or situation that needs resolution. Dreams with the same plot cannot just happen all the time. They may indicate the need to resolve the situation. This can relate to relationships, attachments, health. Repetition of the scenario indicates an upcoming significant decision, that it is time to reconsider your stereotypes and behavioral line. After this, the same dreams may stop. However, having stepped on the same rake, a person can see the same dream again, and absolutely the same one.

Why don't I have dreams?

Dreams reflect the anxieties and emotions of the sleeper. As already mentioned, they can indicate upcoming events, such as problems. However, some people never dream at all. In fact, dreams are present, but not everyone is given the ability to remember them. Dreams are often suppressed by the brain, especially if a person is very tired or overloaded with reality.

Why people don’t dream: psychological factors

There are various reasons for the lack of night dreams. One of them is psychological. Psychotherapists claim that dreams are absent due to excessive brain reloading during the daytime. Therefore, the subconscious mind stops showing pictures so that the mind can move into a stage of rest from emotions. Before falling asleep, it is recommended to leave all problems and worries outside the bedroom. There is a second psychological explanation for this phenomenon - the sleeper can only remember disturbing night dreams.

The role of emotional perception

It is difficult to disagree with the statement that the plot of a dream is directly related to the psycho-emotional state in which a person goes to bed. Stress at work, conflicts at home, and anxiety can result in a dream into an endless labyrinth of confusing rooms, constant problem solving, scary visions or an awkward sleeping position.

The experiences and emotions experienced by a person in reality are extrapolated to night visions. Thus, being in a depressed state, a person in dreams sees the people around him as sad and despondent, and with his own aggression – angry and unkind.

Frequently dreaming is completely normal. However, regular nightly, emotionally charged dreams exhaust a person. And then his main desire, no matter how strange it may seem, is to stop dreaming and sleep at least one night without a “silent movie.”

Of course, people are primarily bothered by frequent bad and nightmare dreams, which they want to get rid of. But the solution to every problem lies in the reasons for its occurrence.

Some interesting facts about dreams

Quite a lot is known about the nature of night dreams. We invite you to learn a lot of interesting things about them:

• Television influences dreams. A person’s sleep is influenced by a TV show, movie, or cartoon watched on TV. The study found that 80% of participants under 30 had colorful dreams. Moreover, if before this you watched programs with color images on TV.
• The brain permanently erases the dream after the dreamer has seen it. This is similar to cleaning a computer disk, except for interrupted dreams. Note that what is mostly remembered are the dreams from which we awoke.
• Blind people also tend to dream. People with disabilities such as blindness see images in their dreams. Those with congenital blindness, unfortunately, do not see dreams, but such people dream of sounds, tactile sensations, events, and smells.

• When a person sleeps, his body is paralyzed. Now you know why it doesn’t hurt in this state. That is why many medical surgical procedures are performed under different types of anesthesia. During the first phase of falling asleep, the body paralyzes a special brain signal so that the sleeper does not reproduce body movements that occur in sleep.
• During the night, a person can see from 4-7 night dreams. Now you understand why the expression “Having the seventh dream” exists. In fact, you can see approximately 7 sessions.
• The sleepy state blocks psychosis. A study was conducted during which those who took part in the experiment were not allowed to dream, but were given the opportunity to sleep 8 hours a day. After three days, each participant in the study began to experience difficulties: he became irritable and inattentive, and lost concentration. The study participants also experienced hallucinations and primary manifestations of a psychotic state.

When the experiment participants were given the opportunity to visually enjoy interesting dreams, all of the listed negative manifestations, including psychosis, ceased to bother them. The subjects began to experience longer night dreams.

If we talk about the frequency of dreams, each person has an individual number of dreams. On average, 2-5 cycles occur per night. You can remember all of them, partially, or not remember a single one at all after waking up. Whatever your brain decides, so it will be. Most often, several cycles are observed when a person wakes up several times. Even in 5 minutes you can have several dreams. All you have to do is interpret them correctly by looking into a dream interpreter.

Time you need to spend sleeping at different periods of your life

Surely everyone has heard that you need to sleep at least 8 hours. However, for people of different ages, the norm for the duration of night's rest may differ.

Indeed, 8 hours is the normal duration of night sleep for people over 14 years old. But for children under 14 years old - middle school students - an eight-hour period is clearly not enough.

It is important to know! It has long been noticed that schoolchildren who sleep only 7-8 hours do worse in their studies, they are more irritable and unfocused. The reason for the lack of rest is an incorrect daily routine, lack of planning, and unfavorable living conditions.

A child who goes to kindergarten needs to go to bed no later than 21:00; such norms were recommended back in the USSR. If a kindergartener goes to bed at nine in the evening, then by the time he wakes up (let’s say at 6:30) he will have slept for 9.5 hours, and will compensate for the remaining time with an afternoon rest.

However, in Europe they would be surprised at this approach. It turns out that in Western countries children under 5 years old are put to bed even earlier - from 18:00 to 20:30. It is believed that the biological clock of a preschool child is set to a given bedtime.

The longest period of sleep in a newborn baby. At this time it grows and develops. It should be remembered that the body of a monthly baby is very dependent on the mother. The main rule for healthy and deep sleep for a child up to three months is that he should not fall asleep alone, as this causes him anxiety, as a result of which the baby will often wake up and cry.

Elderly people should carefully monitor how long their sleep lasts. When a person sleeps for more than 10 hours, upon awakening he does not remember how he fell asleep (and cannot control such “failures”), experiences daytime sleepiness, sees hallucinations - these are often signs of disorders; stroke, ischemic attack, brain tumor.

It is important to know! If long (more than 8 hours) sleep in an elderly person is associated with a violation of the daily routine, this situation should be corrected. Sleeping for a long time at this age is harmful - it causes disruptions in the functioning of various organs.