 - I need 8 hours of sleep a night.
On average a usual person sleeps 7.5 hours per night. According to one large survey the range was between 5 and 9 hours. Elderly people need less sleep. Identical twins, raised apart, have similar sleep patterns. Some people tend to have a good sleep because they are good sleepers, and some are not.
- Healthy people have to sleep more.
Not sleeping doesn’t mean that it will damage your health. Mortality tables show that people who sleep longer than 10 hours or less than 4 hours die in two times more than those who sleep 7 to 8 hours.
- People need less sleep as they grow older.
As we get older, we do not need less sleep, but, as a rule, we get less sleep. That is so because our ability to sleep for long periods of time lessens with age. Older people have more fragile sleep and are more easily disturbed by noise, light and pain. Adults tend to experience an increase in the lighter stages of sleep and a decrease in the deeper stages. As we get older, we may wake up more often during the night. Some people may have medical conditions that cause sleep problems.
- I need sleeping pills.
Sleeping pills may be alright temporarily but be cautious, as becoming a habit with them can cause insomnia if sleeping pills are stopped rapidly. The impulse is then to take the pills again. Drug induced sleep is artificial and the cycles and type of sleep can be agitated. Do you know that Siamese twins fall asleep independently of the other twin?
- I never dream.
People have 4 or 5 periods during the night in which they dream. These periods make up 25% of our sleep time. Most of people forget their dreams the next morning. Dreaming is an essential element of sleep.
- Lack of sleep has no serious effects.
Short-term insomnia may cause little consequences; chronic insomnia can impair memory and good sense, lead to mood disorders, make it difficult to learn new things or perform daily tasks, and decrease the ability of the immune system to prevent disease.
- Snoring is a harmless, normal occurrence.
Snoring may be a symptom of sleep apnea (SA) that occurs in some people when their windpipe collapses and blocking airflow and waking the person. This happens many times a night. A lack of oxygen in the organism may cause physical problems.
- Insomnia is a disease or an illness.
In fact, insomnia is neither a disease nor an illness. In place, it is the symptom of many different kinds of illnesses or conditions such as sleep disorders, jet lag, acute stress, heart disease etc.
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