Insomnia Essay

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and other institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conduct research into narcolepsy and other sleep disorders in laboratories at the NIH and also support additional research through grants to major medical institutions across the country. The NINDS continues to support investigations into the basic biology of sleep, including the brain mechanisms involved in generating and regulating sleep. Within the National Heart, Lung, and Blood

In my paper, I will tackle insomnia from various perspectives: definitions, types, causes, effects, and means of solutions.

Suddenly you wake up in the middle of the night. Something is keeping your brain working as if it was in the middle of the day, awake and full of energy (but is not like that happens, anyways). You really don’t know really how it feels until it’s happening to you and now I know how it feels. There is difficulty in falling or staying asleep. Then, the waking up in the morning early and being extremely tired. This is a sleep disorder when you cannot sleep and you are awake; it's like the awake cycle is turned on and so the sleep cycle is turned off. The strength of something being so powerful keeps you awake without the ability to have a peaceful sleep; it is exhausting.

Sleep deprivation is prevalent in industrialized societies and has been linked to serious health issues and traffic accidents. This essay views sleep and sleep deprivation from five different motivational perspectives in order to gain a holistic understanding of the phenomena. From evolutionary, psychodynamic, behaviourist, cognitive, and hierarchy of needs perspectives, it is inferred that the cognitive and behaviourist perspectives uphold the most merit for gaining understanding into sleep and sleep deprivation. However, it is

It is no secret that, similar to other animals, sleep is one of the most important things for a human being’s overall health. According to Watson and Breedlove, there are four main biological/neurological functions of sleep: energy conservation—the body uses less energy when it is asleep through what is called slow-wave sleep (SWS) by doing things such as reducing body temperature and slowing respiration; niche adaptation—the environmental happenings to which organisms are adapted to; body restoration—it restores materials used during awake hours; and memory consolidation—SWS and REM sleep help the brain consolidate memories from the previous day (2012).

Users of these treatments still experience stage 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM sleep in the same manner and for the appropriate amounts of time. Brain patterns remained the same in each stage with alpha waves in stage 1, sleep spindles and K-complexes in stage 2, slow-wave brain patterns in stages 3 and 4, and theta waves in REM sleep. The process of gaining wakefulness also remains generally identical. As peak levels of melatonin are reached, the function of MT1 receptors and the body’s need for sleep declines. The suprachiasmatic nucleus becomes more excitatory and begins transmitting signals of

normal counterparts. These findings have led to a robust exploration in the science of sleep

Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have identified a brain circuit that's indispensable to the sleep-wake cycle. This same circuit is also a key component of the reward system, an archipelago of interconnected brain clusters crucial to promoting behavior necessary for animals, including humans, to survive and reproduce.

Sleep is one of the unavoidable daily-living activities and it is one of the most important factors contributing to a person’s health. A quality sleep is essential for the physical, cognitive and psychological well-being of a person. Learning, memory processing and maintenance of the brain are among the most important functions of sleep. In addition to maintaining the brain, sleep has important roles in controlling the

     “Insomnia is the inability to obtain adequate amount or quality of sleep. The difficulty can be with falling asleep, remaining asleep, or both” (“Insomnia Encyclopedia“). Sleeping is a major point in physically and mentally restoring yourself for the tasks ahead. Most people say that about eight hours of sleep is an adequate amount, however it differs from person to person depending on their sex, age, and health conditions. An estimated one-third of the population suffers from some form of insomnia. “In recent studies, a survey reported that 30% of American women and 20% of American men took medication to help them sleep during the course of a year” (“Insomnia”). The medications these people took are called

The rate of cerebral blood flow during REM sleep is high in the extrastriate cortex but low in the striate cortex and the prefrontal cortex. This activity reflects a lack of visual in- put in REM (little or no activation in the striate cortex), but the presence of active visual hallucinations during dreaming (activation in the extrastriate cortex). Lack of prefrontal cortex activity likely reflects the lack of organization and planning that occur in dreams. Regional cerebral blood flow during slow-wave sleep is generally decreased throughout the brain compared to waking. However, some researchers have found localized increases

“The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to, then forcing oneself to stay awake for days on end must surely come a close second.”

We have always known that we need sleep, but up until the 1950s, most people thought of sleep as a passive, dormant part of our daily lives. We now know that our brains are very active during sleep. Moreover, sleep affects our daily functioning and

Recent research has proven that children just are not getting the sleep they need these days. Kids today seem to be doing poorer in school and have less attention spans. Most parents are not aware of a common problem effecting thousands of children in this country: sleep disorders. Parents often fail to follow there children's sleeping patterns which can result in some serious side effects if that child has a sleep disorder. A study done at Tulane University in New Orleans studied about 300 first graders that preformed poorly in school. They found that 18 per cent showed signs of a sleeping problem. The percentage of children with bad grades found to have sleeping problems

Insomnia affects almost half of adults living in America. (# 8, 2012) This is a shared sleeping disorder that many people across the universe are diagnosed with. Several causes of insomnia include exercising too much, stress, withdrawal from alcohol or a certain drug, physical circumstances, and diseases. People with insomnia usually have trouble going to sleep or staying asleep, which causes people to have poor-quality sleep, which will affect their mood, energy, and productiveness for the next day. (MediLexicon, Intl., 2012) More symptoms of insomnia include waking up earlier than needed, having trouble falling back asleep, and being in a bad mood the following day. Insomnia can cause many more problems such as weight