Sleep Throughout Life

Sleep’s Lasting:

In young-adults 7.5 hours average, during weekdays and 8.5 hours during weekends, but there are people who need 5.5 hours or less and others that require 9.5 hours and more, and they are normal people.

Sleep’s Functions:

NREM ---->

-	Physical recuperation

REM ------>

-	Psychological and affective restoration
-	Memory fixing

Dime como durmió cuando vivía, Dime si fue su sueño ronco, entreabierto, como un ahogo negro hecho por la fatiga sobre el muro. El muro, el muro ¡Si sobre su sueño gravitó cada piso de piedra, y si cayó bajo ella como bajo la luna, con el sueño!

Pablo Neruda, Alturas de Machu Picchu.

Normal Sleep in a Young Man

	Time to fall asleep:5-15 minutes
	4 to 5 cycles of sleep per night
	Lasting of each cycle: 90 to 100 minutes
	Physical restoration in the first third of the night
	Memory fixing and pshycological restoration in the last third of the night
	Awakenings are normal, but they have to use less than 5% of the night
	NREM uses a 75 to 80% of the night
	REM uses 20 to 25% of the night

Sleepiness and alert
" Quality of alert depends on quality and quantity of previous sleep"

	35% of population suffers from an insomnia problem
	0.5 to 5% of the population has daytime sleepiness
	50% of the somnolent has had a car accident
	over 50% of them with work accidents
	Most catastrophes are produced in relation to hours of more sleepiness
	20% of the workers that do shifts fall asleep in their jobs.