Zzzzzz

Sleep. Oh how I dream of the day when humankind can pause time just so everyone can catch up on their sleeping. Till then, we still wonder, why is it that sleeping is so important and why does it have to be an everyday necessity? Let’s dig deeper and learn about sleep! Oh and please do be sure not to fall asleep on me. You good? Okay, let’s begin then.

First, let’s go over where sleep may have originated. One of the earliest theories of where sleep originated goes all the way back to the first few animals of earth. Some animals at night instead of panicking would actually think things thoroughly and just stay still and quiet for hours and hours in order to survive. Since they weren’t active at night, they were not killed by their predators because you know; it’s hard to see something that’s not doing anything at night. Through natural selection, this behavior is what scientist believe evolved into what we call sleep nowadays.

That theory could just be one of a million but heck, it sure got me convinced. Now that we got that covered, let’s move onto the embarrassing facts. Well they’re not really embarrassing but they’re just true. The average, normal human being requires eight hours of sleep. You know what that means right? Either we’re not normal or that we just seriously suck at getting enough sleep. Back in 1942, we humans averaged around eight hours of sleep, but now we average at about 6.8 hours. The amount of sleep we get is slowly going down and eventually, the world will be taken over by Starbucks with their coffee keeping us awake for twenty or more hours for days on end.

Now that we got that covered, let’s see why sleep is so important. I’m sure most of you know that lack of sleep causes stress and misery and tears. But is that really all it causes? Lack of sleep can cause health problems such as heart diseases, infection, cancer, and even death. Oh and headaches, those too. This is because while we’re sleeping, our immune systems go to work. If you don’t get enough sleep, they don’t get enough time to work causing, well you know, headaches. Oh and death too.

The most ironic of consequences of lack of sleep is that it hinders our ability to learn. Get it? Because school is one of the main reasons that make us stay up. Well this is because lack of sleep causes a disruption in our focus. This can be taken to an even more deadly level if you think about this. You’re driving at night with your family who’s all gone asleep. You realize that you’re just as tired from those four hours of sleep you got. You slip from Earth to dreamland and somehow make it to the other side as well.

I hope this has been insightful to you just as much as was to me. Be sure to get enough sleep and to shut off the internet early once in a while. Wait, you still there? Please don’t tell me you didn’t make it through the whole thing. Well look at the time, I guess I’ll let you off the hook for now, till next time from your always dreaming (not figuratively) blogger.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-if-you-dont-get-enough-sleep-2014-2

Trick or Treat!

Ah Halloween, the holiday all about candy and chocolate and costume competitions, or so we think. Halloween, surprisingly, used to be a serious transition of life or death. I know what most of you are thinking and no please don’t go yet to eat your candy. Let’s hear about the true story of the night of the dead and the dark and cold. Muahaha*cough*

According to this article, Halloween’s origins date back to the Celtics who lived 2,000 years ago in modern day Ireland. They celebrated their new year on November 1^st, which marked the end of summer and harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. The Celts believed that on the night of October 31^st, the boundary between life and death became distorted, causing ghosts and the dead to return to earth. That’s not what it says on the news nowadays but you know. Anyways, the Celtics would gather around a campfire in costumes of dead animals (yay) and burn crops and animals in hopes to survive the “attack” of the undead or in other words, the coming winter.

So how do we go from burning animals while wearing dead animals to where we are now? I have no clue. Good thing this article does. By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of the Celtic territory. They would influence the Celtic traditions with various traditions they enjoy doing, such as bobbing for apples. By around the first century, the Roman Christian church presented the All Souls’ Day which is believed to have replaced the Celtic’s sacred festival of the dead. This All Souls’ Day was also called All-hallows day, which is where the name Halloween is believed to have originated from.

As most of us should probably know, churches are good and try to keep things dead animal free. So the church tinkered with the Celtic tradition a bit. Instead of trying to scare away the undead or satisfy them with the flesh of animals, the church decided to celebrate them with parades and fun and costumes and stuff. Now it’s starting to sound like the Halloween we know and love huh. Well, that’s because it is.

The British came to America and along with them, the practices of Halloween. Yaay. The British weren’t the only ones trying to show the goods, however, immigrants from Ireland, the homeland of Halloween, spread ideas of Halloween in America as well. Taking from both English and Irish traditions and some ideas of their own, Americans began to dress up in costumes (not the dead animal kind) and go door to door asking for candy and sometimes even money.

Well there you have it folks. That is the story of how people went from wearing dead animals to taking two pieces of candy when the sign says only take one.

Sources

http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween