How’s Your “Honk-shooing?”…
Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …
Do you have trouble falling asleep?
Many times it’s our own fault.
Dr. John Herman, sleep expert from the University of Texas says using the bedroom for anything other than sleep or sex is a mistake.
Too many of us have turned bedrooms into “activity centers” with televisions, cellphones, video games, book-reading, food, knitting and such preventing us from getting to sleep.
Dr. Herman says bedrooms should be “dark and quiet”.
Anything that creates noise or light should be avoided.
The good doctor believes the bedroom should have just two uses.
Sleep and sex.
If you’re doing it right, you should be able to fall asleep in 10-20 minutes.
If you start “blowing z’s” in less than 5 minutes, you are probably exhausted and sleep-deprived.
When our kids were small, sleep was called “honk-shooing”, probably related to snoring.
So how’s your “honkshoo-ing?”
A typical adult should get, on average, about 8 and 1/4 hours of sleep each night.
That means we spend about one-third of our lives asleep.
Infants may sleep up to 16 hours a day.
For we big people, the 1st 3 hours of sleep is called “slow wave sleep”.
That’s followed by the deepest form of sleep, REM (Rapid Eye Movement) when we do most of our vivid dreaming.
How many dreams do we have per night?
Experts say 4-6 and if you don’t agree it’s probably because you simply forgot most of them.
Twelve percent of us dream in black and white.
By the way, nobody sleeps through the entire night.
Getting up to visit the potty, noises, a shifting partner, getting hot and cold will disturb your sleep.
Studies say 57% of men and 40% of women snore.
That always wakes up the “non-snorer”.
Now, our sense of smell decreases when we snooze and that’s one of the reason smoke and fire alarms were invented.
About 15% of us sleepwalk.
Can you stay awake all night?
Remember those “all-nighters” while in school?
The longest anyone has been monitored going without sleep is 11 days and 25 minutes.
This happened during the 10th annual Great San Diego Science Fair in 1964.
The student who did it was asked if he’d ever do it again.
His answer was a resounding “No!”
Studies say if you try to stay awake all night, you’ll be more tired @ 4AM than at 10AM.
Due to the body’s “circadian rhythm”, the time between 3AM and 5AM is considered the “dead zone”.
Makes me wonder because I’ve been getting up to go to work before 4AM, literally for years.
I used to be a work “pinch-hitter”, sometimes working nights, over-nights, mornings and mid-days and I found it took me a 2 or 3 days before I adjusted to a different sleep time.
You also cannot “bank” or catch up on missed sleep.
Other things can affect our sleep.
Some suffer from “somniphobia”, the fear of falling asleep or “oneirophobnia”, the fear of nightmares or dreams.
There’s also “clinomania”, an irresistible urge to stay cozy in bed all day long as well as “dysania”, the feeling when you’ve just awakened and really don’t want to get out of bed.
There’s also insomnia, restless leg syndrome, narcolepsy and sleep apnea which can impact snoozing patterns.
Ever get drowsy after lunch?
Blame those circadian rhythms because we all experience an energy dip around 2PM and again at 2AM.
When my wife and I were dog owners, we used to have a Boxer names Bootz who we nicknamed “Deer Dog”.
She’d climb into the bed and stick those long legs straight out, relegating you to bedside “cliff-hanging” after you were awakened by a paw to the back or face.
Take the advice of Dr. Herman and turn off the TV, the video games and cellphones at least 30 minutes before sack time and chase those pets off the mattress.
Your “honk-shooing” should markedly improve.
This is one assignment we all need to sleep on.