25 Things Your Body Does While You Sleep

As most of our muscles became inactive during sleep, the body burns fewer calories than during the day, so body temperatures drop. Scientists have figured out that your body temperature is usually lowest at around 2:30 am.

Though covered with lids, your eyes move in sleep. In fact, their movement even differs from the particular stages of sleep. First, they roll, and later on, when we get into a deeper sleep, they twitch and dart about. However, we usually don’t remember this.

Sudden twitches and hypnic jerks are mostly associated with the first stages of sleep. They are usually harmless, but they might be strong enough to actually wake you up.

There is a good reason why most of your muscles become paralyzed in sleep – if they were active, you would be able to act out your dreams, which would be, of course, extremely dangerous.

The top layer of the skin is made of closely packed dead cells which are constantly shed during the day. In sleep, the skin’s metabolic rate speeds up, and many of the body’s cells show increased production and reduced breakdown of proteins. As proteins are needed for cell growth and repair of damage from factors like UV rays, deep sleep may indeed be beauty sleep.