Let\u2019s face it: waking up with a puddle of drool on your pillow isn\u2019t exactly the sexiest way to start the day. You might think, \u201cGreat. I drooled again. Am I a baby or a bulldog?\u201d But here\u2019s the surprising truth: drooling while you sleep might actually be a sign that your brain is functioning really well.<\/p>\n
Yep. That little trail of nighttime slobber could be your brain giving itself a pat on the back.<\/p>\n
1. Drooling = Deep Sleep Champion<\/p>\n
First things first: why do we drool in our sleep?<\/p>\n
Drooling typically happens during the deepest stage of sleep \u2014 specifically, non-REM Stage 3 sleep, also known as slow-wave sleep. This is when your body and brain are in serious rest-and-repair mode. Muscles relax, your heart rate slows down, and your brain clears out waste products through the glymphatic system (more on that later!).<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re in this deep sleep, your swallow reflex also relaxes. Saliva pools in the mouth and, well, gravity does the rest. Hello, drool.<\/p>\n
So if you\u2019re waking up with a damp pillow, it could actually mean you reached deep, high-quality sleep \u2014 something millions of people struggle to get.<\/p>\n
In fact, according to the CDC, about 35% of adults in the U.S. don\u2019t get enough sleep, and many experience shallow, fragmented rest. So if you\u2019re snoozing hard enough to drool, congratulations \u2014 you\u2019re ahead of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let\u2019s face it: waking up with a puddle of drool on your pillow isn\u2019t exactly the sexiest way to start the day. You might think, \u201cGreat. I drooled again. Am I a baby or a bulldog?\u201d But here\u2019s the surprising truth: drooling while you sleep might actually be a sign that your brain is functioning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5617,"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5615\/revisions\/5617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timeshow.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}