disappears Why does sleep paralysis occur is there some
some
scientific explanation why because some people are
more prone to paralysis than
others and above all it should worry us or is it
dangerous in some way today
hyperactin we talk about
sleep paralysis First of all let me tell you
something you already know that my job
English is essential from reading
papers to inform myself on these topics
to traveling to international events
like a few weeks ago when I was
invited to a round table in Dublin
to talk about education on
social networks the thing is that unless we
travel we don't usually have the opportunity
to speak English that's why I want to tell you
about itoki a platform that I have used
to have private classes with
native teachers from home which I
find super comfortable and useful to
practice speaking a language on the
itoki website you can choose the teacher
that you like the most and that best suits your
schedule about sleep paralysis have
you ever had one or experienced one so
it's like when you're asleep but do you
feel like you're awake you're kind of awake
like your brain is awake somehow
so you're like conscious and and like
you can feel you're in your room but
your body is still asleep somehow so
you're like paralyzed so you try to move you try to speak you try to
ask for help
but you can't I I try to usually focus
on moving my fingertips and trying to stay
if you feel like learning or improving your
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code hyperactina 3 you can get 5
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on a 10 class be careful because this is
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you are interested hurry I'll leave
you the link in the description good luck and now let's continue with the video sleep is essential for the body you can't imagine To what extent while we sleep our body goes into repair mode it recharges itself repairs and prepares for the next day for example in the brain sleep is key
to eliminating toxins accumulated
during the day creating new connections
between neurons and consolidating
memories and new knowledge that we have
acquired during the day so if you
are studying for an exam Remember
that sleeping well is extremely important don't do this to me by
staying up all
night studying all night before we know each other but
not only the brain benefits from
sleep but the rest of the body
also needs it in the muscle for
example sleep improves the performance
of mitochondria the organelles of the
cell that produce energy
protein synthesis is activated and the
production of key hormones such as
testosterone or
growth hormone is triggered in short if you want to gain
muscle sleeping well is as important
as training But what exactly happens
when we sleep sleep It is not
simply a state of being off and that's it
but quite the opposite while we
sleep our brain continues
working in a very complex process
activating and deactivating different
areas as needed at any given
moment let's see it in general
sleep is divided into two large categories
that surely sound familiar to you REM sleep
for its acronym in English or rapid eye
movement or rapid eye movement
which is a part of sleep in which the
eyes move quickly and non-
REM sleep in which the eyes do not move and
which in turn is divided into phases n1 n2 and
n3 when we sleep first
the phases of non-REM sleep take place and then the
phases of REM sleep this complete
sleep cycle is repeated several times during
the night do not worry I will explain them to you
in a very simple way so
that you understand
as we mentioned everything begins with the
non-REM phase when we go to bed the
first phase we enter is
phase n1 or drowsiness phase which
is basically the transition between being
awake and asleep the muscles
begin to relax although sometimes
small nervous discharges occur
that cause the typical spasms in the
legs or hands when you are
falling asleep sometimes
that typical sensation of falling into the
void also occurs that I don't know if you have ever experienced
this phase it is also when your
father is asleep in front of the TV if you
take the remote away and change the channel he
wakes up and tells you not to change the
program that he was watching that is why
to take the remote away you have to wait for
phase n2 the light sleep which is the
longest and occupies half of the
total sleep time here the muscles are
more relaxed there is no movement anymore and if we
were looking at the brain with an
EEG we would see how
brain activity slows down meaning the
brain is officially in
sleep mode after more or less an hour
because this varies depending on the person the
brain enters phase n3 known as
slow wave sleep this phase is very
important because it is when the
body enters the repair mode that
we mentioned before
key hormones are produced tissues are regenerated
and protein synthesis is activated it
is also in this phase when we
consolidate memories and what we learned
during the day is fixed in memory
as a curiosity, it is in the n3 phase where
phenomena such as sleepwalking occur,
that is when people wake up from
sleep or talk without realizing it and
night terrors when someone screams
or stirs at night without remembering
anything later it is also in this phase
when children wet the bed
because their sphincters can
temporarily disconnect once
the entire non-REM phase is over after
about an hour and a half of sleep we enter
the REM phase the famous
rapid eye movement phase Why does
this eye movement occur? Well,
because it is the phase in which the
most intense and vivid dreams occur although the
the
functions of the REM phase are not yet clear it is believed that memory
consolidation also participates, that is to
say, it would help us to
strengthen the knowledge that we have
learned and this is precisely where
the most interesting thing happens and the key
to understanding sleep paralysis
during this REM phase
our motor neurons are blocked so that
our body is practically
paralyzed Why? Well, so that we do not
jump out of a window because we are
dreaming that we are a bird, for example, it
makes sense this blockage of
movement occurs thanks to a
key structure of the brain
called the medulla oblongata which is located at
the base of the brain right where it joins
the spinal cord normally the
medulla oblongata is responsible for regulating those
movements that we don't usually think about
like breathing heart rate or
digestion for example but in addition the
medulla oblongata is also responsible for
controlling communication between the
brain and our muscles during the
REM phase the medulla oblongata continues to
control our vital functions that
is breathing etc. but
completely cuts the connection with the
muscles causing what is known
as REM phase atonia in other
words the muscles are totally
relaxed and even if the brain is dreaming that you are
running jumping or fighting a
bear your body remains still in
bed and thank goodness but of course what happens if
right at that moment the dream is
interrupted Well this is where the
problems begin the brain may
wake up activating suddenly but the
medulla oblongata has not yet
reestablished the connection with the
muscles the result you are awake
but you cannot move if you have lived it you
know what i mean this is
sleep paralysis right now you
know you're awake but you can't
move or speak you try to lift an
arm open your mouth to ask for help
scream but nothing and the worst thing of all is that
in many cases you can also have
hallucinations this happens because the
brain is still half trapped in the dream
so the experience doesn't feel
like a simple i can't move but it
can also include strange sounds
like murmurs voices roars buzzing
etcetera physical sensations like
pressure in the chest difficulty
breathing sweating muscle aches
even terrifying images hours like the
hatman i was telling you about at the beginning of the
video while you are there scared to death
the spinal burb continues doing its
job which is to block movement
a few seconds go by that feel like an
eternity until little by little you begin to
feel your fingers arms and finally you
regain full control of your body and
you'll be wondering what did i do
to deserve
this sorry in the popular imagination
sleep paralysis is attributed to all
kinds of things each one more fun
that it is a religious experience that they are
demons trying to take you to the afterlife
even though you're dying and the grim reaper has
come to look for you but has just
realized that he has the
wrong person This is my
favorite as you can imagine none of
these explanations have a
scientific basis So what explanation does
science have for
sleep paralysis one of the most accepted hypotheses
is that it is a
defense mechanism of the body to prevent us from
physically continuing with the
actions we were doing in the
dream when we wake up as we have said the REM phase
produces very vivid dreams so it
may be that when we wake up we do not
immediately distinguish between
reality and the dream Imagine that you are
dreaming that you have been invited to the evening
and you are training to win it if you
woke up in this control mechanism you
could start hitting everything
you find throw over the entire
nightstand I might not even know how to give a
tremendous beating to the person
sleeping next to you So in summary
according to this hypothesis
sleep paralysis would be a protection mechanism
now Well I also tell you that although the
body is trying to protect us
from terrifying hallucinations like
that it has come out average but well the
curious thing is that when you have
sleep paralysis you can get three types of
hallucinations let
's see them presence hallucinations occur when you notice that there is someone else in the room normally a threatening malignant presence this is the classic example of the hatman that we mentioned before a tall figure with a hat that simply watches you there are also incubus or succubus hallucinations in
which in addition to feeling a presence you notice
a strong pressure in the chest and
difficulty breathing as if someone had
sat on you
formerly this was attributed to demons
called incubi of male appearance
or succubi of female appearance who
supposedly tried to have
sexual relations with the
sleeping person hence the name of these
hallucinations incubus succubus finally we have
vestibular motor hallucinations in which we have
sensations of false movement or
even out of body experiences as
if you were suddenly seeing your
own body from outside like in a
third person video game Okay and the
most terrifying of all that they can give you all
three at once has
this happened to you guys because I would love to know, I
mean, I've never met a person who has
had three sleep
paralysis hallucinations at once, I personally have had
many sleep paralysis hallucinations in my
life and although I don't remember hallucinations
as such, I do think that the most
terrifying feeling is feeling like you're
screaming for help but then
being in a loop and realizing that it's
not actually happening and that
nobody is going to come to help you because you can't
scream. I mean, that seems
super terrifying to me Although here's definitely a
little Story Time. Uh, my
scariest sleep paralysis was the one I got
on a train I mean, it's already scary that you feel like you're
in your house Imagine yourself on a train and it's giving
you the freak out that the
train is going to arrive at your stop and you can't get
off because you're like blocked and
paralyzed in your seat, I mean, that
was really scary anyway, what torture I
mean, I would love for you to explain to me What has
been your worst sleep paralysis
Okay, and all this that we're talking about,
the next question always leads me
What happens to me and not to
my partner or my friends or my parents, I
mean, what does it depend on that a person is
more prone to have paralysis? Well, there
is no resounding answer to this
question, but it seems that
sleep paralysis is more frequent
in people who have trouble
sleeping, for example, this 2014 study
among Chinese adolescents showed that
people who marked in the survey that they
slept badly or very badly were more likely
to suffer from sleep paralysis and this is not an
isolated case, subsequent studies such as
one carried out on 990,000 Japanese
have found similar patterns. What
factors increase the risk of
having sleep paralysis? Well, according to
this latest study, the probability
increases if the following
conditions are met, take note: if you are
a man, like that because you have mental health problems, if you consume alcohol regularly, if you take very long naps, I corroborate this because most of the paralysis have happened to me while taking naps. So, in my case, this is true: if you
go to bed too early or too
late, if you have trouble falling asleep,
if you have poor quality sleep. of
sleep or if you suffer nightmares
regularly I still have to say
that sleep paralysis is not super
frequent it is estimated that only between 5
and 10% of the population has paralysis in a
regular way That yes if we talk about having had it at
some point in life there the
figure goes up quite a bit at least half of
the population has had
sleep paralysis at some point in fact there are many
examples of artists who have portrayed
sleep paralysis like this painting from
from
1781 where you can see an incubus
sitting on a sleeping girl or
for example this one from 1915 in which there is
a succubus on top of a man okay it has
been made clear that
sleep paralysis is rare and most of the time it is
scary but it is dangerous Well you
can't, the paralysis itself is not
dangerous in fact there is no case in
the scientific literature of someone who
has died from
sleep paralysis Of course if it repeats several times
over time it can be indicative that
something is not right as we mentioned before going through
a stage of stress
consume too much alcohol or even that
your environment is not suitable for
sleeping okay And what do I do If I get
sleep paralysis? Well although I know that it
is difficult to stay calm and think
that it will pass, for example, the
first few times I was
very scared, I remember trying to
scream, move, ask for help, but with
time in the end I have learned that it is something
temporary that will pass, so
when I get it I try to focus on the fact that
nothing is happening and above all, on moving my
fingers little by little and
concentrate on that to
wake up. If you have any tricks that you
use and that work for you in these
cases, please let me know, share them
with this community of
sleep paralytics, it would be called so that we can
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