Sleep. There is no single activity that human beings do more, and it is as vital to our existence as food and water. While sleep is still in many ways a mystery to scientists, having even a basic knowledge of what it is and how it affects us can help us lead happier, healthier lives. So to help you better understand it and hopefully enjoy more restful nights, here is everything we currently know about sleep.

  • Most humans can lead happy, productive lives on as little as eleven hours of sleep a night.
  • Your quality of sleep is directly affected by whether or not a gorilla is hurling you across your bedroom.
  • Human beings are one of only three species known to sleep in race car beds.
  • Regular exercise can greatly improve the quality of your sleep, so try sleepwalking on the treadmill for at least thirty minutes a night.
  • The scientific name for the internal clock that regulates our sleep is “the knee.”
  • How does the body know to breathe while you’re sleeping? It doesn’t.
  • The human body signals it has entered REM sleep by violently voiding its bowels.
  • Your grandparents’ ghosts gather in your bedroom to stare unblinkingly at you while you sleep each night and also to steal from your change jar.
  • To improve your chances of getting a good night’s sleep, shoo any buglers loudly playing “Taps” by your bedside out into the hallway.
  • God desperately yearns to sleep but never can—the constant deafening roar of our prayers makes it impossible.
  • The sudden jerking movement your body makes right before you fall asleep is caused by your heart letting out one final, glorious thud before powering down for the night.
  • You ever see those weird breathing masks husky guys wear when they sleep? Scary!
  • Humans, on average, spend one-third of their lives sleeping and another third pretending to sleep so that their spouses won’t make them do chores.
  • Diana, Princess of Wales, has been sleeping for over 20 consecutive years.
  • Drooling is your unconscious body’s incredibly ineffective defense mechanism for warding off apex predators.
  • Sleeping bags can also be used as normal bags, and it’s wild that I’m always the only person at the grocery store who realizes this.
  • In 2014, researchers in Sweden were able to detect sleep traveling outside of a human vessel for the very first time and trap it inside a pinball machine.
  • Sea otters hold hands when they sleep in order to cruelly remind you that you’ll never find love.
  • Researchers recommend avoiding blue-light before going to bed if you are a huge coward who is afraid of light.
  • Eskimos have only one word for sleep and it is “sleep.”
  • Some people can function normally on four hours of sleep a night, and they’ll be sure to tell you about it.
  • Human children possess the extraordinary ability to perfectly mimic deep sleep, an evolutionary mechanism designed to fool their parents into carrying them in from the car.
  • Owls don’t sleep. They just use the bathroom way more instead.
  • Before the invention of the sleeping bag in 1876, people just slept in regular plastic grocery bags and thought it was fine.
  • When a fetus kicks his mother’s belly, it’s because he’s asleep and having a dream where he’s fighting Jaws.
  • They didn’t make it clear in the movie Jaws whether or not Jaws sleeps, but you gotta figure he does. He’s just a big shark, after all.
  • Chances are nothing evil will happen if you enter the number 666 into a Sleep Number mattress, but that doesn’t mean you should try it.
  • If you ask your veterinarian to put your dog to sleep, she’ll do a heck of a job with it.
  • Ten o’clock is bedtime.