As a child many of us have read about the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty but in real life, we take sleep for granted and rarely ever talk or think about it with the possible exception when somebody suffers from a sleep disorder. Although we do not know the function of sleep, but, it appears to be a necessity for the functioning of the brain because when we are deprived of sleep, it leads to irritability, tiredness, and impaired judgment. So, this brings us to the subject of sleep and what can go wrong with it.
Sleep is a form of mental and physical relaxation with closed eyes. The depth of sleep is variable in its various stages and is not constant. The sleep requirement is also not constant but varies with age. So, the newborn baby sleeps for almost 18 to 20 hours daily which decreases to about 12 hours in a growing child. An adult requires about 8 hours of sleep but the exigencies of work in an urban setup compels him to reduce it to 6 hours on average....
