Rm Sleep And Memory Essay

09-09-2012 Day 1: I went to sleep at 1:00 am and woke up at 6:11 am. The dream was that my grandmother passed away and that I had nobody to confide in. It got to a point where I just went

I have completed the sleep assessment and I am not surprise with the outcome it gave me. The results showed that my sleep habits could be better. Some days are better than others, but generally, I do wake up drowsy and hitting my alarm clock once or twice. I admit, I usually stay up on my phone past midnight like any other young adult. If it is not my phone that is keeping me up at night, it’s usually my mind reminding me of all the stress that may be going on in my life.

There are a few factors that are essential for life such as breathing or eating, but one of the most essential factor is sleep. Even though the amount of sleep people need differs from one individual to another, the fact is that eventually everyone needs to sleep. People know the importance of sleep, but due to the increased workload and the pressure of society people are getting less sleep. As a result, there has been an increase interest on the effects lack of sleep has on the mind especially the memory of a person. Many questions arose about the relationship between sleep and memory due to the fact most high school and college students have become sleep deprived. For example, does more sleep mean higher grades?

From a psychodynamic perspective, sleep is encompassed by the sex drive as it fosters health and therefore encourages reproductive success. Sleep results from an imbalance between contending motives, and is a mechanism used to restore balance. The research method implemented by psychodynamic theorists to explain sleep is a case study (Burton et al., 2009). This involves the comprehensive observation of the sleeping behaviour of a small group of people. Afterwards, a test is applied to deduce the state of tension between the contending motives. The biological variable is sleep; the theoretical variable is the internal contention between motives. It is expected that when there is an imbalance between contending motives, sleep will occur.

This article explains the importance of getting the perfect amount of sleep at night. The idea that sleeping for less than five hours or more than nine hours proves to have a negative effect on the human body. Sleep deprivation has a closely related link to memory retention and can cause a person to have trouble with daily task. The author continues to explain that not only is the brain effected by too little or too much sleep, but the rest of the body is also effected. Conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and even depression have links to not getting the perfect amount of sleep. The article concludes with listing tips to get the ideal amount of sleep at night, such as, going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day and limiting the amount of caffeine that is consumed throughout the day.

Nishida, M., Pearsall, J., Buckner, R. L., & Walker, M. P. (2009). REM sleep, prefrontal theta, and the consolidation of human emotional memory. Cerebral Cortex, 19(5), 1158-1166.

The amount of sleep was self-reported by participants using a sleep diary. In the sleep diary participants would note the time they got into bed, how long it took them to fall asleep, the number and duration of awakenings during the night, what time they awoke, and what time they got out of bed. Misinformation or false memory was evaluated in a few different phases. In the first phase the participants took part in a

Although newborn infants spend about half of their sixteen to eighteen hours of sleep time a day in REM sleep, adults spend only about an hour and a half in REM sleep. (1) This difference in both amount and percentage of REM sleep between infants and adults indicates the importance of REM sleep, or of dreams, in development. Several dream researchers have hypothesized that REM sleep may play an important role in infant brain development by providing an internal source of powerful stimulation which would prepare the baby for the almost infinite "world of stimulation it will soon have to face" and also by facilitating the "maturation of the nervous system." (1)

Sleep is essential for optimal human function. In fact, a lack of sleep can actually affect important cognitive functions, like memory. A 2007 study added to the already substantial evidence that even acute total sleep deprivation impairs attentiveness, working memory, and reaction time in various tasks (Alhola, Polo-Kantola). One such way to further this investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on memory is through the Memory Interference Test, or MIT. MIT is a program designed by Gaston Pfluegl, Ph.D., and Enrique Lopez, Psy. D., at UCLA to test the memory of students. Along with a memory test, the MIT also anonymously collected the physical states, mental states, and demographics of each student test subject, providing a substantial database through which students can test hypotheses, such as the connection between sleep deprivation and memory. Since the MIT requires short-term memory recall, the hours of sleep a student had before taking the test could have a noticeable effect on his or her performance. An unprecedented study this year found that sleep deprivation may actually even induce false memories, which would certainly impact a student taking the MIT because the test requires the subject to recognize images that have been previously presented to them (Frenda, et al). The hypothesis is that students who slept 8 hours before the test will perform better on the MIT than students who only slept 4 hours. The null hypothesis is that students who had adequate

In this world there are many problems, but one specific problem is sleep loss. Sleep loss can cause many problems in our world such as health problems, an unproductive habit, and the scientific reasearch of how much sleep people need.

Sufficient sleep is a biological necessity for the normal functioning of humans, it allows the body to rest and to replenish itself so that it is able to serve its function of living. In addition, mental and physical health depend on the amount of sleep we get. Most adults and students value work and college much more than sleep, this is due to the academic, career, and materialistic demands. Researchers have noted a positive correlation between lack of sleep and decreased physical health, mental health, and academic performance. Sleep consists of two cycles: non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM), which are sleep patterns that alternate throughout the night. Firstly, sleep begins with non-REM sleep lasting about 90 minutes followed by REM sleep lasting 10-30 minutes, then the cycle repeats itself. REM sleep is the most important phase of sleep because the body is internally awake, with waking-like brain activity, yet asleep and externally calm. Thus, an uninterrupted REM phase of sleep is necessary for integrating previously learned material, and giving the individual a feeling of being well rested and refreshed. Many individuals will put sleep off so that more work hours, and school work can be fit into the day in order to get a better outcome such as job promotions or better academic grades, but I believe that sleep deprived people show a low performance in daily tasks due to suffering from mental, and physical health disorders.

As work hours become longer and people’s lives become more packed, the number of hours of sleep that people are privileged to, also shortens. This leads many to question the importance and meaning of sleep. Grivas, Down, and Carter (1999) defines sleep as a “regularly occurring altered state of consciousness that occurs spontaneously and is characterized by a loss of conscious awareness.” There are four to five sleep cycles per night which consists of a period of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM). Non-rapid eye movement is when the body recovers, the neurotransmitters are replenished, and the body tissues are repaired. Rapid eye movement sleep is necessary for the restoration of mental functions. This is known as the repair and restoration theory of sleep. Recent research also points to a variety of other different theories, most notably, the evolutionary theory. The evolutionary or adaptive theory suggests that sleep has evolved to protect animals from danger. In this review, the strengths and limitations of the two theories of sleep will be analysed and evaluated.

“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.”

 The goal is to avoid, "clocks on collision," and to allow internal clocks to match external clocks, this is why night shifts are often on weekly rotation.

Stern and Morgane put forward an alternative restoration theory, proposing that during sleep, the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain are restored. Again, this theory would seem plausible, in part because people who take antidepressants (these drugs help restore neurotransmitter levels) appear to need less REM sleep than normal. Evolutionary theories would perhaps seem less likely than restoration ones in terms of explaining the apparent need for sleep. According to hibernation theory (Webb, 1982), sleep has evolved to enable energy to be saved at times when being awake and active would be of little use to animals (e.g. because it is too dark for them to do anything).