An average person requires at least one hour of sleep for every two hours spent awake. Sleep affects day-to-day life; a person lacking sleep is affected negatively with changes in behavior and physical symptoms. There are many disorders that can alter a person’s sleep pattern; what are they and how can they be treated to ensure safe a balanced sleep? What should be avoided in order to be able to sleep without interruption? Finally, what can be done to make sure REM sleep is achieved. REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is important and must be achieved so that our mind and body aren’t affected. It is important to keep it balanced so that our perspective and participation of daily activities, such as studies and sports, doesn’t shift.
The first question to be addressed is: what is REM sleep? REM is an acronym for Rapid Eye Movement: that is “the stage of sleep that is most associated with dreaming” () It is the fifth of five stages of sleep which is characterized by the rapid and random eye movement of an individual. In addition to eye movement, body temperature is reduced by 1 to 2°F, breathing patterns vary from regular/balanced to irregular when in REM, the heart and blood pressure reduce and brain activity remains active during sleep. As said in the “Characteristics of Sleep” website, sleep is basically a “period of reduced activity” with “decreased responsiveness to external stimuli”( ). All of this explains the nature of sleep, but why do we sleep and why is it important? An average infant from newborn to 2 months old needs at least 12 to 18 hours of sleep; an average child from 3 to 5 years old needs at least 11 to 13 hours of sleep; an average teen from 12 to 18 years old needs at least 8.5 to 10 hours of sleep and an average a...
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Having no sleep can lead to unhealthy lives, relationships, one’s ability to function and interact with the world, and an unbalanced state of body, mind, and spirit. Sleep is crucial to an individual because it is a time where the body rests and restores energy and develops important information and without sleep, the body will slowly disintegrate. Poor sleep quality often is associated with Insomnia, but the two are two different items. Poor sleep quality is where an individual does not get at least 4 hours of sleep, but is still able to sleep and does not have a normal sleeping cycle. Insomnia is classified as a sleeping disorder, where one persistently lacks the ability to sleep or maintain sleep. This paper goes into a deep discussion of what Insomnia is and the two different types, the causes of Insomnia and how it affects a person’s lifestyle, a comparison between Men and Women who have Insomnia, and possible treatments to aid this disorder.
Millions of people suffer from the same tossing and turning every which way, getting their sheets all disarranged and their insistent minds abundantly worse. Patients often proclaim indications of insomnia while sitting in the family health clinic. Insomnia traits include hindrance falling asleep, continueing to awaken, and rejuvenating before wanted. One may suffer from insomnia if one shows signs of an increased difficulty in attentiveness, decreased communal or scholastic skills, and a diminished mood or enthusiasm. (Foldvary-Schaefer 111). Countless individuals deal with insomnia for a large amount of their lives and some choose differing treatments, while some do not use any treatments at all. While never being uncommon, the amounts of causes leading to insomnia come in boundlessly; finding new studies and stories every day.
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into how different parts of the brain are behaving during sleep and how to influence those parts to give us the best or worst
Sleep is one of our basic needs to survive and to function in day to day operations, but not everyone needs the same amount of sleep. Some people can survive on very little sleep, i.e. five hours a night, and some people need a lot of sleep, to the extend that they are sleeping up to 10 to sometimes 15 hours a night (Nature, 2005). According to Wilson (2005) the general rule states that most people need from seven to eight hours of sleep. The deprivation of sleep in our society in continually increasing with the demands in society increasing work loads, the myth that a few hours of sleep is only necessary to function properly and that sleep is sometimes considered as killing time (Nature, 2005). Sometimes sleep deprivation is also caused by other situations like sleep disorders, i.e. sleep apnea, chronic insomnia or medical conditions such as stress (Wilson, 2005).
Sleepiness, whether due to sleep apnea, heavy snoring, idiopathic hypersomnolence, narcolepsy or insomnia from any number of sleep-related disorders, threatens millions of Americans' health and economic security (1). Perhaps somewhat most concerning of these disorders are those that allow sleep without having any control over when it happens-idiopathic hypersomnolence and narcolepsy. The two are closely related in that both cause individuals to fall asleep without such control, yet narcolepsy occurs without any dreaming during naps (2). For years, narcoleptic people have been falling asleep in corners, concerned, as they have given numerous attempts to try to stay focused and awake. But besides the excessive fatigue that people experience, there surely must be more that can be associated with causing such sleepiness among people at an uncontrolled level. There might especially not be a reason involving the I-function of the brain, as people are not aware of when necessarily they will fall into their deep sleep.
Many studies of the role of sleep are partial or total sleep deprivation studies which support Oswold’s restoration theory. One of these supporting studies was Dement’s. He deprived participants of REM sleep and consequently found that they increased their number of attempted REM stages from 12 to 26 over 4-7 nights. During their first uninterrupted night, participants increased their REM sleep by 10% which is known as REM rebound. This suggests the importance of REM and the possibility that the purpose of sleep is to get into REM sleep. The participants reported anxiety, irritability and difficulty concentrating which shows that REM sleep is needed to avoid these affects and enable brain recovery which corresponds with Oswold’s theory. Even so, Dement’s study has low ecological validity, it has low population validity because there were only 8 participants and they were a self-selected sample. Participants would probably have shown demand characteristics because the experiment took place in a lab. It also has low mundane realism because people would not usually sleep in a lab and be interrupted repeatedly.
Sleeping is something that is an essential part of human nature and is a must in order for one to be a functional human being. Sleep is an idea that is accompanied by many wives’ tales, including the idea that one needs seven to eight hours of sleep each night and alcohol helps one fall asleep and sleep more soundly. One myth about sleep is that during sleep, one is in a state of nothingness. In truth, however, it has been discovered that during sleep the brain is active, variations in heartbeat and breathing occur, and the eyes and ears are active throughout the time of sleep. These activities during a person’s sleep are important because they help that person be more aware, awake, and alert during sleep.
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Kyle, S. D., Espie, C. A., & Morgan, K. (2010). “… Not just a minor thing, it is something major, which stops you from functioning daily”: Quality of life and daytime functioning in insomnia. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 8(3), 123-140. doi:10.1080/15402002.2010.487450
In this Forum on Sleep and Dreams, we will see how the diversity of academic disciplines can help to answer important questions about sleep and dreaming—questions that may touch the basis of human intellect. The Forum is fortunate in...
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Sleep is a very important factor in the human function. Our body and brain is able to reset itself and rejuvenate while we sleep. When we do not get the required amount of sleep, we start to feel lethargic and foggy minded, because our mind and body wasn’t able to replenish itself. Sleep is imperative that an insignificant rest deficiency or lack of sleep can affect our ability to remember things; decisions and can affect our temperament. Chronic sleep deficiency can get the body to feel agitated and it could lead to serious health problems such as, heart problems, stress, acne, and obesity.