At 25-years-old, Sam Pinnington has spent eight years, three months and 17 days asleep.
And that’s because us mere mortals spend a third of our lives tucked up in bed.
Yet it remains a curious thing.
Everybody requires different amounts and most of what we know has come to light in the last 25 years.
It would be common sense to assume we sleep to recover from the day’s exertions. But I’m afraid that doesn’t add up.
Because eight hours of sleep, saves little more, than the amount of energy in a piece of toast.
Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama and good old Napoleon got by on four hours.
And the current world record for the longest period without sleep is 11 days, set by Randy Gardner in 1965.
Four days into the research, he began hallucinating. This was followed by a delusion where he thought he was a famous footballer.
So don’t get any ideas, there’s no way round it, we all need sleep and copious amounts of it.
But sleep deprivation is no laughing matter.
It has a major impact on emotional and physical health as well as the ability to function.
Continual lack of sleep causes language, memory, planning and sense of time to be severely affected, practically shutting down.
And 17 hours awake is the natural equivalent to two glasses of wine in your system- so careful driving home after a long day at work.
It will come as no surprise to find out that a decent average for sleep is about eight hours, which isn’t bad compared to the humble tiger who clocks up close to 16 hours a day.
But what about those infuriating individuals who spring out of bed while others are stuck drooling over their pillow.
Apparently it’s all down to hormones.
And the natural alarm clock which enables some people to wake up when they want is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin.
Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.
And if you’re interested in what your body naturally does, every night of your life, it can be broken down into five phases.
The first is light sleep, that twitchy state of affairs when you’re half awake and asking for directions to the motorway.
The second is true sleep, which last about 20 minutes causing the breathing and heart-rate to slow down.
During stage three, the deep sleep, the brain begins to produce delta waves taking breathing and heart rate to their lowest levels.
And stage four is characterised by rhythmic breathing and limited muscle activity. If someone pushes you out of bed at this point, you won’t adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes.
But here’s the interesting part- stage five and the rapid eye movement (REM).
This begins about 70 to 90 minutes after we fall asleep and we have around three to five REM episodes a night.
And terrifyingly enough, although we are not conscious, the brain is often more active than when we are awake.
So maybe it’s a good thing being asleep at your desk.
This is also the period when most dreams occur and our eyes dart around and breathing rate and blood pressure rises.
However, our bodies are effectively paralysed and this is said to be nature’s way of preventing us from acting out our dreams.
After REM sleep, the whole cycle begins again… like counting sheep
But before you doze off, a little on dreams.
It’s possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.
They occur during REM and non-REM sleep phases.
And we have all woken from those really bizarre ones, well that is likely to have happened during the REM phase.
And the dreams like you’ve left your wallet somewhere are all part of the non-REM phase, which are more thought- like with little imagery.
But here’s a final ponder- the extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back in Canada has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.
So who else is in for a 10am start-to-the-working-day petition?
