O n May 11 2020, the crypto world experienced the phenomena knows as Bitcoin halving . For those who are still a little looney-toons regarding this phenomena, here's the lowdown . Moral of the story is that, as the Bitcoin supply decreased and it's 21 million market cap slowly approached, it was widely accepted that the low supply and high demand will increase the price of the cryptocurrency back to its previous highs. Basic business right? Wrong! Source: Equity Trust Company BTC prices actually fell and after briefly holding steady, are only just rising above the 10000 USD range. Surprise eh? Well, we are not done yet. Because while the most valuable crypto coin wasn't showing it's expected gains, some other cryptocurrencies shot to outer space. There was no SpaceX rocket nor a Tesla Roadster involved. These "altcoins" bumped up in their market value thanks to the entire underlying system of cryptocurrency: investor speculation. But what exactly are these ...
We've all experienced it at least once. Its Friday night, and after an obscenely long day at work, school, gym, party etc, you intensely thank god for the weekend. As you enter your bedroom you feel your supersoft bed beckoning you into the intricacies of doing absolutely nothing. As your head hits the pillow, you yawn and drift off to a dreamless sleep.
You hazily wake up at ten the next morning, thinking you feel relaxed for the extra 3 hours of sleep you just obtained. But your body begs to differ. Your legs feel weighted with bags of lead, your eyes are barely adjusting to the sunlight in your room, your arms are puddles of jelly moving at a lackadaisical pace reminiscent of a slow-motion movie. Your brain buzzes at a feverish pace thinking 'Why am I tired?'
It leaves you stumped, doesn't it? You then start analyzing. Too less sleep = tired; too much sleep = also tired? Doesn't make sense, does it?
But that's just the way we have trained ourselves.
You see our body is an amazing feat of evolution. We have ( at least some of us) have comparatively advanced thinking and speech skills. Our body is able to heal itself provided you didn't put yourself into a shredder. Each and every part of our body has its own amazing function. From the cells to the tissues to the organs to the entire system work around the clock to make sure of Charles Darwin's survival of the fittest theme. But if it works around the clock there must be something regulating the clock ain't it?
That internal rhythm system is what we call a circadian pacemaker. Its a region in the hypothalamus controlling several different aspects of the body but as its name suggests it is a tiny clock which regulates whether we wake up refreshed or just hopelessly hungover. And obviously, it's not self-coded. We do it on our own.
Imagine waking up at 7.00 am every day where you sleep 8 hours through the night, continuously for a year. The cells in the circadian pacemaker will obviously get attuned to your schedule and in turn, make sure that the body feels freshly baked when you hit a solid 8 hours and wakey at 7.00. Of course, if you end up sleeping less than your usual 8 hours your body will obviously feel sleepy. That's simple logic.
Now let's say you join a different school or take up employment at a place where work begins later. You joyously set your alarm to ring at 8.00 instead of 7.00 and boom next day you are feeling all groggy and drunk. It doesn't matter that you slept at the same time every night, it matters you awoke at a different time instead. Those cells in the hypothalamus start don't care whether you are asleep at 7. They tell the rest of the body cells to wake up and start running. And the rest is a stupor induced history.
To be honest, if this is the case, after regular wakey-wakey at 8 your circadian pacemaking smells might just recode to get the body awake at 8 (provided you wake up of course). But now that you are technically oversleeping, is it good or is it bad?
Actually its greaaaaaattttlyyy bad. It's just bad.
Studies have shown that regular oversleeping could be detrimental to health, like too much chocolate, too much ice-cream, too much cake. Anything too much (insert preferred favourite thing) is bad. And that positively sucks.
In a study done by the University of Sydney, regular oversleeping could increase your mortality ( not immortality okay) by 44%. Funnily enough, their studies also show that undersleeping increases mortality by a relatively paltry 9 %. Harvard's Nurse Health Study states that extensive oversleeping could lead to memory issues, increased risk of heart disease. Some studies even claim that oversleeping could lead to diabetes and obesity.
Although it is tough for people to accept the validities of some research there is no doubt that general oversleeping does cause a few problems, with tiredness the main result. My Grandpa always told me 'Too much of a good thing is bad'. But sleep is not good. It's Merry Christmas to some people, it's a great regularity which is always wanted in human life. So if sleep kills....then what is the point of being a Homosapien. Ridiculous I tell you.
You hazily wake up at ten the next morning, thinking you feel relaxed for the extra 3 hours of sleep you just obtained. But your body begs to differ. Your legs feel weighted with bags of lead, your eyes are barely adjusting to the sunlight in your room, your arms are puddles of jelly moving at a lackadaisical pace reminiscent of a slow-motion movie. Your brain buzzes at a feverish pace thinking 'Why am I tired?'
It leaves you stumped, doesn't it? You then start analyzing. Too less sleep = tired; too much sleep = also tired? Doesn't make sense, does it?
But that's just the way we have trained ourselves.
You see our body is an amazing feat of evolution. We have ( at least some of us) have comparatively advanced thinking and speech skills. Our body is able to heal itself provided you didn't put yourself into a shredder. Each and every part of our body has its own amazing function. From the cells to the tissues to the organs to the entire system work around the clock to make sure of Charles Darwin's survival of the fittest theme. But if it works around the clock there must be something regulating the clock ain't it?
That internal rhythm system is what we call a circadian pacemaker. Its a region in the hypothalamus controlling several different aspects of the body but as its name suggests it is a tiny clock which regulates whether we wake up refreshed or just hopelessly hungover. And obviously, it's not self-coded. We do it on our own.
Imagine waking up at 7.00 am every day where you sleep 8 hours through the night, continuously for a year. The cells in the circadian pacemaker will obviously get attuned to your schedule and in turn, make sure that the body feels freshly baked when you hit a solid 8 hours and wakey at 7.00. Of course, if you end up sleeping less than your usual 8 hours your body will obviously feel sleepy. That's simple logic.
Now let's say you join a different school or take up employment at a place where work begins later. You joyously set your alarm to ring at 8.00 instead of 7.00 and boom next day you are feeling all groggy and drunk. It doesn't matter that you slept at the same time every night, it matters you awoke at a different time instead. Those cells in the hypothalamus start don't care whether you are asleep at 7. They tell the rest of the body cells to wake up and start running. And the rest is a stupor induced history.
To be honest, if this is the case, after regular wakey-wakey at 8 your circadian pacemaking smells might just recode to get the body awake at 8 (provided you wake up of course). But now that you are technically oversleeping, is it good or is it bad?
Actually its greaaaaaattttlyyy bad. It's just bad.
Studies have shown that regular oversleeping could be detrimental to health, like too much chocolate, too much ice-cream, too much cake. Anything too much (insert preferred favourite thing) is bad. And that positively sucks.
In a study done by the University of Sydney, regular oversleeping could increase your mortality ( not immortality okay) by 44%. Funnily enough, their studies also show that undersleeping increases mortality by a relatively paltry 9 %. Harvard's Nurse Health Study states that extensive oversleeping could lead to memory issues, increased risk of heart disease. Some studies even claim that oversleeping could lead to diabetes and obesity.
Although it is tough for people to accept the validities of some research there is no doubt that general oversleeping does cause a few problems, with tiredness the main result. My Grandpa always told me 'Too much of a good thing is bad'. But sleep is not good. It's Merry Christmas to some people, it's a great regularity which is always wanted in human life. So if sleep kills....then what is the point of being a Homosapien. Ridiculous I tell you.
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