Sleep Case Study

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Recommended: Effect of sleep deprivation Porpova 2013

Harvard School of Medicine defines sleep as a period of decreased activity, where the body goes through a decrease in physiological needs (e.g., blood pressure, body temperature and respiration) while other physiological processes (e.g., growth, cell repair, and digestion) increase. One third of our lives is spent sleeping which is essential to muscle recovery, information retention, as well as preparing the body to operate at effectively the next day and also considered as one of the most important things when it comes to day-to-day happiness (Maroun N, 2013). Sleep is food for the brain and during this state, important brain and bodily activities take place which when skipped, can be dangerous or even deadly, especially when behind the wheel driving (National Sleep …show more content…

The heart rate slows down and body temperature reduces. At this state the body is ready to go into deep sleep. About fifty percent of our sleep time is spent in this stage.
Phase 3 and 4 - the body is now in a deep sleep state which should be maximized. It is difficult to be awoken from this state and if awoken, one becomes disoriented for some few minutes before realizing the environment around him. People at this stage could sleep walk and wet their beds as well as have night terrors.
REM phase- this stage mostly happens 90 minutes after one sleeps and can last to an hour. At this stage breathing becomes rapid and shallow, heart rate increases, blood pressure and body temperature rises, eyes move rapidly( still closed), limb muscles are temporarily paralyzed, and males experience erections. Since the brain is active at this stage, people tend to have dreams. The early stages of sleep should have short REM sleep and longer deep sleep and later in the night, REM sleep gets longer and deep sleep shortens. This phase is important to our minds because it processes emotions and memories which can be vital to learning and developing of new

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