Bartek's blog

    Scientists estimate that an average person spends around 47% of their active time daydreaming. Doing so is considered healthy, as it enables us to slow down and collect our thoughts. Some people though, may experience daydreams so intensive that they get distracted very easily. Such a condition is called Maladaptive daydreaming or daydreaming disorder. It usually gets  triggered by stimuli such as smell, noise, sound or even conversation topics. Maladaptive daydreaming can develop as a coping mechanisim in response to trauma or sustained and prolonged stress - it helps to switch off while feeling stressed out. Usually people who already suffer from other mental illnesses or disorders are prone to this condition. OCD, depression and anxiety might be the primary cause of developing maladaptive daydreaming.  https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health/maladaptive-daydreaming

       Everyone has had at least a single weird dream that they simply can't forget. When we go to sleep our minds stay active and create vivid images in which we expierience either surreal events or go through very basic things. What we dream of very often depends on what we do before going to sleep, what we went through during the day and some even bring out things that we are trying to ignore or forget.     Lucid dreams are a specific type of dream in which you're aware that you're dreaming and most often you are able to control what's happening in your dream. This phenomenon is quite rare but you can increase the chance of it happening to you by building your sense of self-awareness. There are different ways and techniques by which you can initiate this kind of a dream,     Nightmares are dreams that are scary, usually they happen randomly without a good scientifical reasoning behind them. Most common themes of this kind of sleep are violence,...

 Like every field of life, sleep has it's phenomena - parasomnias. They are extremely rare, nevertheless they occur. Some are benign, others can be harmful, depending on your surroundings and your mental state. The most common ones are: sleepwalking (and its different variations), sleep terrors, sleep paralysis and exploding head syndrome.      Sleepwalking, as the name inclines, is a phenomenon ralated to unconscious walking. This parasomnia doesn't harm its victim directly - as long as there are no objects which we can hurt ourselves with. If we know that we are vulnerable to sleepwalking its advised that we hide sharp objects, lock our doors and hide our keys. Two of more common sleepwalking variations is sleep-eating disorder and RBD. The first one makes it so that the victim eats while sleepwalking and the latter makes it so that one acts out their current dream.      Sleep Terrors are a variation of nightmares, though they lack the visual aspect ...

 Sleep disorders are conditions that influence the quality and amount of sleep that you get. Everyone can have problems falling asleep once in a while but sleep disorders tend to stretch for long periods of time. Usually as result, even though you’ve slept a healthy, recommended amount of time, you can experience weariness and fatigue. There are around 80 different types of sleep disorders but most common types are insomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome and narcolepsy. Insomnia prevents you from falling asleep, sleep apnea influences your breathing patterns while in slumber, restless legs syndrome is a type of sleep movement disorder, and narcolepsy makes you fall asleep during the day due to extreme exhaustion. Such conditions aren’t rare to find. Around 70 million people in the US suffer from such disorders. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sleep-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20354018

Sleep is the most important thing in our life. It enables us to do what we do in our routine. Getting the right amount of sleep is the key to a happy and productive day. Too little and we feel weary, too much and we feel like we wasted a lot of time. Every single person has a sweet spot in terms of sleeping, although each age group has a specific recommended amount of sleep to minimise cardiac problems and maximise productivity. Newborns tend to sleep more than adults as their tissue and bones develop the fastest while in this state - they sleep between 12 and 16 hours a day. Elderly people on the other hand sleep less, between 7-8 hours, minimising heart attacks and other health risks. A popular myth says that sleeping less than 6 hours is unhealthy, which is true to some extent, but there are many people that have a condition called 'short sleep syndrome'. Said condition enables people to go with potentially less sleep than average adults, without putting them through serious...

 In China, there has been a sharp decrease in birth rate. The amount of children born per 1000 people currently holds at around 11. It has dropped significantly comparing to the 1950 statistics - 46 children per 1000 people.  It seems as their propaganda for one-child families is showing spectacular effects. I think that the significant decrease in China is great. By reducing the amount of children born to a single mother they will be able to decrease the amount of poverty and benefit the country's economy. In the near future the majority of the population will be taken by the people of working age that can fuel the economical improvement. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CBRT.IN?locations=CN https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/23/chinese-birthrate-falls-to-lowest-since-1978