We all need it, and most of us could use more.

We’re talking about sleep.

It is estimated that we spend about 1/3 of

our lives sleeping, yet it remains a mysterious

process.

Night after night, we shut down for several

hours during sleep, and everything from hormone

release to tissue repair goes on in our bodies

without us even noticing it.

Our brains generate dreams that many of us

can hardly remember or make sense of.

There are also nightmares, sleep disorders,

and so much more.

“We still have so much to learn about why

we sleep, and how sleep works,” writes clinical

psychologist Michael J. Breus in a Psychology

Today article.

Because there is still so much that is unknown

about sleeping, it is understandable that

myths about sleep have emerged over the years.

We will discuss some of these myths in this

episode of The Infographics Show, “12 myths

about sleep that you didn’t know.”

12.

People who are not early risers are not living

right.

There has been much debate over who is better

off in life – early risers (“larks”)

or late risers (“night owls”).

It turns out that your health and success

in life are not determined solely by what

time of the morning you get up.

According to a BBC article, there is a study

that “showed that night owls are as healthy

and wise as morning types – and a little

bit wealthier.”

Examples of successful night owls include

Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti, author James Joyce,

and Winston Churchill.

And not everyone is meant to be an early riser.

What determines whether you are or not is

something called a chronotype.

Sleep expert Dr. Colleen Carney describes

it as a “’sleep window inside of us.’”

She explains that “’it is genetic” and

“developmental factors” also play a role.

For instance, young children tend to go to

sleep earlier and rise earlier, but the internal

sleep clock shifts in puberty so that teens

want to sleep later and rise later.

11.

Getting less than 8 hours of sleep a night

is bad for you.

While some people need 8 hours of sleep to

feel refreshed, other people can get by with

a little less sleep.

You might even live longer if you sleep a

little less.
A 2002 study of 1.1 million participants between

the ages of 30 and 102 revealed that “those

who had six or seven hours had a lower death

rate than those who regularly slept eight

or more hours – or less than four.”

The mortality rate creeps up for people who

sleep too little or too much.

The NHS discusses studies that link a “’short’

sleep” of less than 6 hours to a “12%

increased risk of death” and a “’long’

sleep” of 9 or more hours to a “30% increased

risk of death.”

However, the NHS cautions that sleep needs

vary by age and other factors, so don’t

think you are more likely to die early if

you “do not follow the ’standard’ pattern

for sleep.”

10.

When you wake up at night, you lose sleep

for only the amount of time you were awake.

Getting up for even 15 minutes in the middle

of the night can cause you to wake up feeling

tired.

As anyone who has cared for a newborn can

tell you, you will feel even more fatigued

if you wake up several times a night.

According to one source, a 2014 study of people

who had 8 hours of interrupted sleep and those

who had only 4 hours of sleep showed that

“the mood and attention of folks with interrupted

sleep were just as bad as those who slept

for only four hours.”

Depression and irritability were common in

both groups, and their ability to perform

an attention task “got worse the longer

they kept at it.”

9.

Cats will suck the breath out of an infant

while the infant sleeps.

This myth has its origins in superstition

and a few accounts of infants who were found

dead with a pet cat on their chests or faces.

According to Snopes, one theory for why cats

do this is because they are jealous of the

attention that the baby is receiving, and

the cat wants to eliminate the competition.

Snopes acknowledges that cats could “upon

extremely rare instances accidentally cause

a death” by smothering, but cats do not

do it “with malice aforethought.”

It also turns out that two accounts of infants

suffocated by cats turned out not to be true.

One case presented in a 1929 article in the

Nebraska State Journal was emphatically denied

by the doctor who supposedly described the

incident.

In the December 2000 case of six-week-old

Keiron Payne who was found dead “in his

crib with the family cat laying on the baby’s

face,” pathologists discovered that it was

not the cat but sudden infant death syndrome

that killed him.

8.

Eating cheese before bedtime gives you nightmares.

There have been a few studies to determine

the accuracy of this myth, and the results

are mixed.

In a 2015 study of 396 freshman college students,

17.8% of them blamed cheese and other dairy

products for “causing both disturbing and

bizarre dreams.”

However, a 2005 study of 200 people by the

British Cheese Board showed “none reported

nightmares and many had pleasant night reveries”

according to a Live Science article.

Different cheeses had different effects on

dreams, with Blue stilton producing the “trippiest

dreams” of things like “warrior kittens”

and “vegetarian crocodiles.”

This limited research seems to indicate that

eating cheese before bedtime may cause a few

people to have bad dreams but not everyone

else, but is ultimately likely nothing more

than a placebo effect caused by people knowing

ahead of time about the myth.

7.

Feeling tired is the only long-term effect

of not getting enough sleep.

While weariness is an obvious consequence

of sleep deprivation, it is not the only one.

A Business Insider article describes some

other negative health effects of a lack of

sleep, including “memory problems, increased

cancer risk, depression and anxiety, heart

disease, and Alzheimer’s linked buildups

in the brain.”

Deprive yourself of too much sleep, and you

could die.

In 2012, Time reported that a “Chinese soccer

fan died from exhaustion after staying up

11 nights in a row in an attempt to watch

every single European Championship game.”

Keep that in mind the next time you want to

binge watch Stranger Things.

6.

Sleeping pills are a good way to deal with

insomnia.

It is tempting to take a sleeping pill if

you are having trouble falling asleep, but

you are better off not doing it.

First of all, sleeping pills do not really

help you sleep.

In his book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power

of Sleep and Dreams, UC Berkeley neuroscience

and psychology professor Matthew Walker argues

that people who take sleeping pills like Ambien

are “sedated” rather than sleeping.

It is not the same type of rest that we get

when we fall asleep on our own.

Second, it is important to keep in mind that

sleeping pills, like any other medication,

pose health risks for those taking them.

According to an Independent article, “some

research indicates that zolpidem (Ambien)

may weaken the brain cell connections associated

with learning — it may be causing memory

damage over time.”

Sleep expert Dr. Daniel Kripke states that

the risk of death “from taking sleeping

pills 30 times or more a month was not much

less than the risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes

a day.”

5.

You should never wake a sleepwalker.

People are afraid to wake up sleepwalkers

because of stories that doing so could harm

the sleepwalker.

One sleep website states “urban legend suggests

that waking a sleepwalker could cause a heart

attack, coma, or even brain damage” but

also describes these outcomes as “highly

unlikely.”

One common recommendation for dealing with

a sleepwalker is to try to guide the sleepwalker

back to bed because this is easier than waking

a sleepwalker up.

As sleep specialist Dr. Mark Mahowald says

in a Live Science article, “while it wouldn’t

necessarily hurt to try to wake a sleepwalker

. . . it’s notoriously difficult to rouse

them in this state.”

Some sleepwalkers may react violently to being

awakened, so if you decide to wake up a sleepwalker,

make sure you do it out of their reach with

a loud noise so that you don’t get hit accidentally.

4.

The moon affects people’s sleep cycles.

This myth has been passed off as fact in a

number of news articles.

There have been a few studies about this issue,

but they are problematic.

According to a Live Science article, there

was a 1999 study suggesting that people tended

to suffer “’sleep deprivation around the

time of full moon,’” but there is no evidence

that the findings of the study “had been

tested or verified with any numbers or rigorous

study of any kind.”

Other recent studies provided contradictory

results.

One small study of 33 volunteer adults in

2013 found that the participants “slept

less during the full moon even when they could

not see the moon and were not aware of the

current lunar phase,” while another “broad

review of sleep-moon research” in 2014 by

the Max-Plank Institute of Psychiatry revealed

“no statistically significant correlation

between the lunar cycle and sleep.”

3.

You swallow eight spiders per year when you

sleep.

You’ll probably be relieved to know this

myth has been debunked by spider experts.

According to a Scientific American article,

the “myth flies in the face of both spider

and human biology.”

Rod Crawford, the arachnid curator at the

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture,

explains that “’a sleeping person is not

something a spider would willingly approach.’”

This is especially true if the person is snoring.

The noise would scare it away.

In addition, most people would feel a spider

crawling on their faces and wake up.

While it is certainly possible for a person

to swallow a spider, there’s a “sore lack

of eyewitnesses for such a frequent event

as eight spiders a year.”

2.

Humans can’t sleep upright.

It is not easy, but it is possible for humans

to sleep upright.

In a BBC article, sleep expert Derk-Jan Dijk

said, “’We can sleep in a chair.

We can sleep standing up but we are not as

good at it as other creatures, for example

birds.”

There is some support for Dijk’s statement.

It is common practice for Buddhist monks to

sleep upright.

They have a special “meditation box” that

allows them to sit up and sleep in a posture

that supposedly helps them wake up refreshed.

There are also anecdotal stories of people

who are able to sleep standing up.

BBC reports that “soldiers on sentry duty

are among those who have been known to take

40 winks standing up.”

The main problem with both types of upright

sleeping is that it is difficult to reach

REM sleep, but not reaching REM sleep in this

situation might be good in terms of safety.

You lose muscle tone when you are in REM sleep,

so you might find yourself falling down unless

you have something to prop you up.

1.

People can’t sleep with their eyes open.

This myth is not true.

According to one source, a condition called

nocturnal lagophthalmos can cause people to

sleep with their eyes open.

Their eyes may be fully or partially open

because of an inability for the eyelid to

close completely.

It is “considered a form of facial paralysis”

brought on by a variety of factors, including

“Bell’s palsy, infection, stroke, surgery,

and trauma.”

Sleeping with eyes open also occurs in instances

of sleepwalking.

A Psychology Today article notes that “sleep

walking usually is an eyes open behavior.”

Sleepwalkers need to have their eyes open

to be able to get around and perform routine

tasks such as eating and even driving!

One source describes how sleep drivers “may

look glassy and dazed, but they can still

literally see things in front of them.”

Are there any unusual sleep myths that we

missed?

Let us know in the comments!

Also, be sure to check out our other video

called How To Fall Asleep In 60 Seconds!

Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t

forget to like, share, and subscribe.

See you next time!