Has sleep deprivation made you anti snoring?

If you’re ever been kept awake at night by a snoring partner, chances are you’ve pondered anti-snoring devices – or murder.

With that in mind we’ve got a few bedtime facts to keep your thoughts off homicide while the rest of the world sleeps peacefully. Well, those without newborn babies that is. Did you know that statistically, a new baby can cause a parent to lose somewhere between 400 and 700 hours of sleep in the first year? That implies a very sleepless 365 days for anyone with a newborn in the house - which is a great reason to get a puppy! Puppies can typically sleep between 18 and 20 hours a day and will never tell you that you’ve ruined their life when you refuse to buy them a car.


Speaking of cars, sleeplessness and car accidents are linked in a very big way. Some statistics suggest that more crashes are attributed to sleeplessness than alcohol and drugs. Other human errors said to have been made because of sleep deprived fatigue include space shuttle disasters, oil spills and even nuclear accidents. Case studies have proven that sleep deprivation has a similar effect on the body and mind as being inebriated does. Apparently, the longest recorded time any human so far has stayed awake for is 264 hours, which equals 11 days. The subject, a 17 year-old named Randy Gardner, was documented to have experienced hallucinations, moodiness, short-term memory loss and paranoia during his record breaking attempt.


Sleep cycles have been a fascinating topic of study for ages. Dodgy animal experimenters (that’s another story completely) have performed extensive sleep deprivation experiments on rats and other furry creatures over the years. One technique used for studying REM sleep deprivation involved placing a rat on a small inverted flower pot then placing the pot in a tub of water with levels just high enough to reach the edge. When the animal fell asleep, causing its muscles to relax, it would either fall into the water or get wet, causing it to wake up and break the sleep cycle.


What they invariably learned must be simple, that sleep deprivation is no fun! There’s a reason why governments have used it as an interrogation technique and form of torture over the ages. On a lighter note, did you know that elephants and some other animals stand during non-REM sleep and lie down for REM sleep? We don’t know why because sleep is still a subject that involves many mysteries in humans and animals alike.


Apparently, noise during the first and last two hours of sleep is the most disruptive to the cycle. Research has also shown that more than 80 per cent of snorers don’t realise they’re doing it until it’s pointed out to them. Don’t lose shut-eye over it though, if you happen to have a noisy-nosed mate there are plenty of effective anti snoring devices available to make sleep deprivation a thing of the past.