How Does Sleep Affect Our Brain?

Sleep is a beautiful thing, but people do not get enough of it. It is a time for the body to rejuvenate and process the events of the day. Sleeping is something that we seek out. Getting the recommended amount of sleep allows our body to function properly the next day. Without it, there could be detrimental consequences. The National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke says that without sleep, neurons could be “polluted with byproducts”. In severe cases, people who get very little sleep often experience mood swings, hallucinations and cells do not continue to reproduce.

Sleeping is where the brain rests, however sleep is an active period in which a lot of important processing, restoration, and strengthening occur. The brain needs time to process all the information, the less time the individual sleeps the brain is having a harder time to process information. When people are sleeping the brain goes through and sees what is important to gain or to lose information, even what has happened that particular day. The brain stores the information during sleep. It is important to get as much sleep possible.

The function of sleep is to promote restoration. The human body accumulates damages due to impact strain and from reactive oxygen species that damage cells and buildup during times of activity (Sleep-wake cycle, 2006). During sleep, most of the body's systems are in an anabolic state, helping to restore the immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems (Sleep-wake cycle, 2006). Most of the body has restorative processes that can supplement the restorative processes that happen during sleep for long periods of time, but the brain is more reliant on regular intervals of sleep for restoration as quiescent restoration is insufficient (Sleep-wake cycle, 2006). When the body does not get enough sleep, most body functions work at diminished capacity. (Brain Basics, 2017). Sleep deprivation is defined as obtaining inadequate sleep to support adequate daytime alertness (Kryger, Roth, & Dement, 2005). The pathological effects of sleep deprivation can lead to undesirable physiologic

Sleep effects every living organism on the world, whether it is positive or negative it has an impact on everyone. There are many different stages of sleep and each containing its own purpose. Sleep isn’t as simple and unnecessary as many believe it to be; sleep has the power to cause many different disorders and can even cause death if a person is deprived from sleep for too long. Sleep can also effect the brain and how the brain functions on a daily basis. Sleep is an important factor of life that should not be over looked. If enough sleep occurs there are many advantages that can make one’s life more healthy and beneficial.

Sleep is undoubtedly one of the most essential requirements for the human body to function properly. It plays a very important role in ensuring the wellness of the human body both physically as well as mentally. In fact, the importance of sleep is clear from the fact that it helps you in maintaining a good lifestyle throughout our entire lifetime. Not only does it help maintain our physical and mental health; rather it also helps in maintaining a decent and healthy lifestyle along with ensuring safety from a number of fatal diseases. It is usually said that the mood in which you wake up is largely dependent on the type of sleep you have been in. This in itself is a big proof of the importance of sleep in our lives. While sleeping, our body finally gets its share of rest and it also gets ample time in rejuvenating from all the wear and tear that it went through during the entire day. Not only this, the body is in its own working condition when we are sleeping as this is the time when it supports the healthy functioning of the brain as well as physical attributes of our body.

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) serves as the biological clock for the human body. It controls the melatonin production of the body, depending of the amount of light that fall into the eye causing the sleep-wake cycle. The human body goes through 5 ultradian sleep cycles, each approximately 90 minutes long. Each cycle consist of a number of stages going up to four; that then again reverse up to the second stage. Instead of going back to stage one, the body then enters a stage of active sleep with increased blood pressure, oxygen consumption and neural firing, as well as eye movement that resembles that of a waking person, called rapid eye movement sleep (REM). The less active stages are called non rapid eye movement (NREM) or slow-wave sleep.

Before this class I wasn’t really sure what was going on during sleep but this class has informed me how important and crucial sleep really is. The book talks about how during a period of sleep the body is restoring and repairing itself because of the increased amount of growth hormones that are released during sleep. It also talks about how it's thought that there is an increase metabolic rate in the brain during sleep which allows a person be be more alert and efficient when a person is awake. I always thought that sleep was important and did something to benefit the body but I had no idea about how different hormones were released during sleep. The book also talks about how humans can live longer without food then without sleep, and after about 11 days a person will die. I just think it’s so amazing how a body has this complex system to restore itself, it’s mind

of sleep is seen as an adaptive move to keep humans from wandering in the night. How we sleep? We go from waking to sleeping, then we get a little deeper into our sleep, sleeps spindles generate periods of extreme activity. Then we go deeper and deeper as delta waves come from our brain waves go lower. During REM (Rapid Eye Movement) the brain is hyped, blood pressure increases causing the heart rate to increase in speed. REM is also crucial in the strong ties we have in memories. REM Rebound goes up REM after decreasing it.

We tend to think of sleep as a time when the mind and body shut down. But this is not the case; sleep is an active period in which a lot of important processing, restoration, and strengthening occurs. Exactly how this happens and why our bodies are programmed for such a long period of slumber is still somewhat of a mystery. But scientists do understand some of sleep's critical functions, and the reasons we need it for optimal health and wellbeing.

A recent news article on CNN, Lack of Sleep May Shrink Your Brain, cites a research study suggesting that insomnia and other reasons for sleep deprivation may reduce brain mass. Although the study was correlational, the author of the news article focuses mostly on one of the three possible relations between sleep and brain mass: lack of sleep may cause shrinking of the brain. Only at the end of article, the author mentions that shrinking of the brain may cause lack of sleep, but completely disregards the third possibility that a third variable may cause both the shrinking of the brain and lack of sleep.

Sleep provides an opportunity for the body to repair itself. Shortwave sleep is for restoring the body in terms of physical activity, while REM sleep is for resting the brain functions. A strong link has been found between growth hormone and tissue repair. Studies show that amounts of growth hormone are greatly higher during the night while you are asleep but are lower and steady during the day while you are awake. The lack of shortwave sleep has also been linked to a decrease in immune function. This supports the idea that sleep helps restore the body

Sleeping affects the brain in ways that cannot be achieved by any other method, at least naturally. Lack of sleep is consistent with “higher levels of depressed mood, fatigue, and sleepiness,” which is observable in any person, but this trend is especially more true for adolescents, because of their developing brain and increased workload. (Fuligni, 2006) Students around the age of fourteen and fifteen are transitioning from middle school into high school and are forced to interrupt their previously set daily circadian due to earlier and later school obligations as well as increased socializing, after-school studying and extracurricular activities. The student’s home life and upbringing can play a large part in their mental health and even

Memory formation can be described as the process through which neuronal activity produces long-term synaptic changes (Hebb, 1949), and involves both encoding and consolidation. Sleep consists of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, with the latter including slow wave sleep (SWS). Predominantly, sleep plays a role in the consolidation of new memories, but also benefits encoding via increases in concentration (Sarode, et al., 2013). The extent of these benefits depends on a number of factors including the duration and time of sleep after learning (Diekelmann, Wilhelm, & Born, 2009). SWS and REM sleep also influence memory formation, with

As life goes on it is known that we spend less time sleeping. In comparison – newborns sleep from 16 to 20 hours a day, between the ages of one and four this decreases to around eleven to twelve hours. In this way it continues and finally an adolescent doesn’t need more than about nine hours of sleep per night. Middle-aged adults require up to eight hours of sleep and when it comes to the elderly they may still need these same hours but they might sleep in spurts waking up now and then. As time goes on sleep patterns tend to change and older infants and young children will be able to sleep through an entire night and also have daytime naps. By the age of six or seven children no longer require the naps. Finally as adults they tend to sleep only during the night rarely having any afternoon naps.

Sleep is a period where it gives your body time to rest and recharge. According to a research done by Howard LeWine, at Harvard’s Health Publishing medical school, both too much and too little sleep is not good. Though sleeping may also be crucial for your brain’s ability to learn and remember, too much sleep can also affect their memory (Sleep Deprivation and Memory Loss). While sleeping the body rests, and the brain gets busy processing information from the day and forms memories (Sleep Deprivation and Memory Loss). Research suggests that sleep helps learning and memory in two distinct ways (Sleep, Learning, and Memory).