From A to ZZZZZZZZ
For something that we spend a third of our lives doing (if we’re lucky), sleep is something that we know relatively little about. “Sleep is actually a relatively recent discovery,” says Daniel Gartenberg, a sleep scientist who is currently an assistant adjunct professor in biobehavioral health at Penn State. “Scientists only started looking at sleep 70 years ago.”
As anyone who has laid awake at night contemplating the complexities of the universe can attest, sleep is a slippery beast. It involves a complex web of biological and neurological processes, all of which can be thrown off by something as simple as a partner’s nasal trumpeting or a coffee too late in the day.
There are also many, many misconceptions about sleep: that you can “catch up” on the weekend for lost hours of shuteye. That you can get by on four hours’ sleep a night. That a nip of whiskey before bed helps you sleep better. Even that eating cheese before snoozing causes nightmares.
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