How long do we sleep? Rest only in our dreams!

The rhythm of life in a big city confronts a person with a cruel choice - either sleep or live to the fullest. And everyone, whether he wants it or not, makes this choice. We spend a third of our lives sleeping. Some people think that this is an absolutely useless waste of time. True, if you wake up terribly sleep deprived, then you immediately begin to appreciate every minute of sleep. Scientists believe that on average we need seven to nine hours to get adequate sleep and get enough sleep. For some, six, and sometimes even five hours are enough to get enough sleep. And there are individuals who need nine or ten hours of sleep to maintain performance during the day. But who in a big city manages to sleep that much every day?

As a rule, we spend the entire working week sleeping less than we need, not getting enough sleep, and waiting like a miracle for the weekend to finally get some sleep. And preferably for future use. But when this most desired weekend comes, we have a lot of things to do - meet with friends, do a spring cleaning in the apartment, buy groceries for the week and go to nature. I can't go to bed early again.

For those who want to enjoy the rhythm of the city to the fullest, a theory has been invented about the possibility of tuning your body in such a way that only two hours will be enough to fully restore your strength for new achievements. Adherents of this theory advertise the endless possibilities that open up when switching to such a sleep-wake regime. And they put pressure on the sore point of any metropolitan resident - lack of time. If you start sleeping using the newfangled technology, you will have time to read all the books, watch movies, learn to trade on the stock exchange and crochet socks for your relatives. Every winter - new ones.

But if you study in more detail the motives of such unfortunate experimenters, it is quite easy to discern a certain pattern. Here is the daily schedule of one such fan:

7-00 7-30 Wake up, breakfast, etc.
7-30 17-00 Work
17-30 21-00 Part-time work
21-00 2-00 Work from home

As you can see, he spends all the available time on making money. And if he already had millions by default, would he conduct such experiments on himself? I seriously doubt it. And living for money is simply stupid. After all, there are a lot of other, more interesting activities that are worth devoting your free time to.

And what about brain functions? Scientists still do not clearly know what exactly happens in this part of our body when we sleep. But only one thing is certain – something very important is happening there. And if we deliberately interrupt the brain in its important activity, then won’t something irreparable happen to our body later?

It seems to me that humans are the only species living on earth that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep. Some of our smaller brothers sleep much longer. For example, compared to bears and marmots, which hibernate for the whole winter, we are awake all year round.

Recent research shows that chronic sleep deprivation can lead to a range of health problems, including weight gain, diabetes and overexertion. It turns out that lack of sleep affects women more than men, and the results do not depend on a person's race. So what kind of theory is this if we don’t fully understand what consequences it can lead to?

Everyone knows very well, from their own experience, that a person who does not get enough sleep has increased irritability, bad mood and distracted attention, which can lead to big problems. Or maybe that engineer, who was on duty at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, had chronic fatigue due to lack of sleep? No one can say this now.

Everyone remembers how they felt at university - you want to do everything, but, no matter how you look at it, there is only 24 hours in a day. And you need to prepare for an exam, celebrate a friend’s birthday, go outside and a lot of other exciting activities. Scientists agree