The verb sleep refers to what a human being or an animal does when it is in a state of rest that implies the absence of voluntary movements and the suspension of the senses. When sleeping, the person is inactive .
For example: "I'm so tired that I plan to sleep late " , "Don't forget to brush your teeth before going to sleep" , "So much noise!" "You can't sleep with this scandal."
The number of hours a person should sleep per day to feel good and be healthy varies depending on age and other factors. At a general level, it can be said that an adult should sleep about eight hours a day . These hours of sleep are usually organized into four or five cycles of between ninety and one hundred and twenty minutes.
By sleeping, a person manages to eliminate cellular waste from their brain and manages to consolidate their memory. Problems that can affect an individual and alter the sleep-wake cycle are known as sleep disorders or sleep disorders .
Sleep disorders are many, and some of them can have very serious consequences on the subject's daily life, both physically, mentally and emotionally. It is important to note that the way they affect the course of sleep is not always direct. Let's look at some of the most common disorders:
* sleep apnea : the individual takes a pause or more when breathing, or takes shallow breaths while sleeping;
* enuresis : the person cannot hold urine during sleep. This disorder can be very humiliating for you, regardless of your age;
* insomnia : sleep is not enough, or it does not return to the subject the energy invested the previous day;
* restless legs : it is a syndrome characterized by the desire or need to move the legs to end certain annoying sensations;
* sleep paralysis : this is one of the worst disorders, since the individual wakes up in the middle of the REM phase , at which time only the brain is active. Since the only part of the body that can move are the eyes, hallucinations due to fear are common;
* sleepwalking : the person performs some activity while sleeping, such as walking around the house or even talking to others.
Sleeping sometimes leads to dreaming. A dream is a representation that is created in the fantasy of the sleeper through images or events. This representation develops involuntarily.
Dreams are very important for some, although they are almost insignificant for others. This difference may be due to cultural or personal issues, since there are those who study them carefully to interpret their meanings because it is customary in their region or by their own decision, but there are also those who believe that dreams are arbitrary images without any meaning.
This also has an impact on the reasons that drive each person to sleep: while physical and mental fatigue is the basis, dream lovers have one more reason to lie down and rest , since new stories always await them, many of them which help them understand issues in their lives that they cannot see clearly during waking hours.
It should be noted that there are other meanings of the notion of sleep. Sometimes, this term is used as a synonym for spending the night : "Today I am going to sleep at my girlfriend's house," "I don't know where we are going to sleep tonight." It can also refer to being careless or inattentive to something : "Be careful: in this business, if you fall asleep, they will walk over you," "Because of your inattention they scored a goal for us: don't go back to sleep!" .