Hypersomnia

Do you ever nodded off in class? Sometimes, we people can not help but fall asleep when we are doing something important such as having our English class. This situation may arise from a lack of  sleep or the usage of drugs or something else. However, if this situation become more serious, it may be identified as disease called Hypersomnia(嗜睡症).

Hypersomnia is a very dangerous disease. People who suffer from Hypersomnia may suddenly fall asleep in time that is not suitable for them to sleep. For example, when they are eating, chatting, or even driving.

Someone may think that patients can prevent from suddenly falling sleep if they have enough sleeping in night. However, the fact is that no matter how long they sleep, they still fall asleep whenever Hypersomnia attack. Morever, now, we people still can not cure this disease.

The following video is made by Sarah Elizabeth, a woman who suffer from Hypersomnia. This video shows the true situation when she was practicing dancing.

                                                               Sarah Elizabeth's video




Reference: National Institutes of Health. NINDS Hypersomnia Information Page
                  Sarah Elizabeth

How long should we sleep?

Everyone know the importance of sleeping. However, how long should we actually sleep a day? The answer to this question depends on how old we are. Roughly speaking, the older we are, the less time we need to sleep.

According to National Sleep Foundation. The most suitable time a child who is between 6 and 13 years old sleep is 9~11 hours a day. Teenagers between 14 and 17 should sleep 8~10 hours every day. People between 18 and 64 have to sleep 7~9 hours each day. And the elderly whose age is above 65 is recommended to sleep 7~8 hours a day.

If we don't get enough sleeping, some of the following things will likely to happen. First of all, we will be in bad temper. Second, we may eat too much because our bodies need more energy. Last but not least, we will more likely to get a cold because our immune system have not enough time to do its job.

However, I don't think it is easy to get enough sleeping every day. For example, I sleep only three hours yesterday...
Sad story.

Reference: Hirshkowitz M, et al, National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary, Sleep Health (2015)

Experiment about sleeping

Is sleeping important to us? Well,I believe everyone's answer to this question is "Yes."
Then,do you know what will happen if we people don't sleep? A Russian experiment show us the answer.

In 1940s , Russian scientists found five political prisoners.All of them volunteered to be the subjects of this experiment in exchange for freedom.The only thing they had to accomplish is keep awake for a month.

Then they were all cabined in a sealed room, which was full of gas that made all of them awake.
And that was also a place where I called hell on earth.

Day1-Day3
Nobody complained of this experiment.They chatted.They played poker.They read books.All of the subjects were looking forward to their "upcoming" freedom.

Day4
They still chatted.However,the topic of their conversation was about trauma.And this situation became more and more often.

Day5
They started to complain of the environment.Moreover,they saw illusions.

Day9
One subject kept running and screaming for 3 hours,then he broke his vocal cords,and couldn't speak anymore.After sawing this,other subjects' reaction,however,was no reaction.They just kept talking to themselves.

Day10-Day12
There were totally no sounds from the room,like there was nothing in it.The scientists claimed that the subject who obeyed the following instruction would become free immediately.And their response was:"We don't want freedom anymore."

Day13-Day14
No response.

Day15-End
The result is so bloody that I won't write them on my blog.If you are interested in what happened next,please google 俄羅斯睡眠實驗 or 睡眠剝奪實驗.I can only tell you that all subjects died.And several scientists commited suicide because of mental stress.


Remember to sleep.
Sincerely yours

Pillow

Again.As the saying goes,you cannot make bricks without straw.Last time,I introduce two kinds of mattress.This time,I wanna  teach you how to choose a nice pillow.To find a suitable pillow,we should check its height and hardness.

Height:
How tall a good pillow is? Well,the answer to this question is different from person to person.So,instead of height,what we truly care about is angle.A Japanese doctor found that if we want to sleep well,the angle of inclination of our heads is 15º.Like this.

Go find a pillow that can make the angle of inclination of your head become 15º.If you sleep this way,you can reduce the posibility of shoulder pain,backache,and headache.

Hardness:
Which is better,a soft pillow or a hard one?Though some people think the more softer the better,people shouldn't sleep on a pillow that is too soft.The reason is that a very soft pillow will prevent us from turning over.Can't turn over means that we don't change our postures frequently, and some parts of our body will be oppressed in a very long time. Then we will feel painful.

Yeah. I finish this article before midnight. Thanks for visiting my blog.