Have you ever wondered what happens when you sleep during the night?! We go to sleep every night, yet, most people don’t know what happens to their body while they sleep. We all dream, but some people can’t remember their dreams in the morning. While others wake up remembering a bizarre sequence of events that often seem real. There are some common dreams and their meanings are usually universal.
What happens when you sleep is that some parts of your body go into overdrive, and the rest slows down
When you sleep, you hit a point of rest called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage. It’s the level of sleep where most of your dreams happen. During this phase, your body becomes paralyzed. However, there’s a part of you that’s always moving, and that’s your eyes!
You also twitch and flail, and get aroused!
The involuntary muscle twitches in our limbs or through our entire bodies are called hypnic jerks or sleep starts. This is actually a natural and common part of falling asleep, and most of us have experienced it. Both men and women get aroused while they sleep. Studies indicate that your body does this in order to prevent itself from going into a vegetative state, like a coma. And as strange as this sounds, some people hear explosions when they are asleep. This condition has been named exploding head syndrome.
Your body also repairs itself, and you wake up taller
While you are in the deepest stages of sleep, your body produces a hormone known as the human growth hormone. This hormone is necessary for the growth of your muscles, bones, and tissues when you are young. And then, for repair and restoration once you stop growing. And by the time you wake up in the morning, you’ll have gained a little bit of height! Also, every minute you sleep, you’re losing tens of thousands of skin cells (which end up in your mattress and pillow). Pretty amazing facts about the human body! This is what happens when you sleep – and not getting enough zzz’s can have a negative effect on your physical and emotional health.
Some of the weird things that happen to us when we sleep may include sleep texting. Yes! It is the new sleepwalking, and it’s a growing phenomenon in which people (usually adolescents and young adults) send text messages while asleep.