Simulated Insomnia Experiment

Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder. It can have a devastating impact on one’s emotion, physical, occupation and social life. While it occasionally can be seen in the clinical setting as a primary diagnosis, it most often presents as a comorbidity to a medical or psychiatric issue;

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

In a laboratory study of sleep deprivation, researchers employed a variety of techniques to keep

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?

The sleep improvement program consisst of two sleep ohs pre- and post-Epworth scale, and a pre- and post-Munich Chronotype Questionnaire; in-order to measure and keep track of not only our sleep but our quality as well. Not only does it measure our sleep but its effectiveness as well by comparing our sleep before we used the techniques given to us in class. Analyzing my sleep prior to and post to implementing the changes and suggestions given to us in class to improve our sleep or maintain and healthy sleep cycle, my sleep didn 't improve greatly due to the world load I had. However I did try to keep my sleep constant sleep and wake time; and I did this by using the

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

This essay focuses on evaluating three functions of sleep. These functions include mental health (Jackowska et al, 2011), cardiovascular disease (Kronholm et al, 2011) and memory (Hu et al, 2006). The key aspects are explained in detail with regards to studies. The findings from the studies will help justify the function and it’s involvement with sleep. Sleep is important for an individual’s well being, survival, brain development, emotional regulation, cognitive function, memory, and in order to protect mental and cardiovascular health. An individual should sleep for 6-8 hours. A recent suggestion by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommended that an individual should sleep for minimum 7 hours. The quality of sleep is significant to maintain healthy brain functions. Evidence, indicating that good sleep quality is essential for mood and health then duration (Chandola et al, 2010). The researches implied will enable the understanding of the functions of sleep and evaluate the evidence of each of the functions, including advantages and limitations. Furthermore ethical issues are discussed, and an overall summary of the essay is briefed.

Success in life is typically measured by the result of what is accomplished during the waking hours. The degree of effectiveness of those hours however, depend on effective rest. “Sleep is integral to the health and well-being of all people” (Wells 233). Sleep is simply defined as the body’s rest cycle – a time to recharge. The widely accepted metric for normal or sufficient sleep is about 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. When this metric is not met, either through total sleep loss or accumulated sleep debt, the effect can be dire, “Sleep deprivation results in poor memorizing, schematic thinking, which yields wrong decisions, and emotional disturbances such as deteriorated interpersonal responses and increased aggressiveness” (Orzeł-Gryglewska 95). Sleep deprivation hinders the abilities of the mind, harms the body, and shortens length of life.

With this being said it is apparent that this topic could have special relevance to the authors because they, or someone they know is associated with the military and has PTSD. Being around people affected by PTSD would cause them to be curious about its effects, leading them into an investigation to determine how it differs from other sleep conditions. On the other hand, PTSD has been common in returning soldiers for hundreds of years, and science is finally to the point where it can be explained and a solid understanding of it can be established. Military related PTSD is an ongoing condition that has been around for many years, and it is possible that the researchers believed that it was time grasp a deeper understanding of it and compare it to a similar counterpart. Insomnia was most likely included for its similar disruption of sleep patterns, but also because it would provide a close enough comparison for the experiment to have real scientific value while still being different enough to accentuate the different effects of PTSD. By providing a control group it allows the researches to demonstrate the severity of the conditions as compared to people without problems. PTSD is widely accepted in modern culture and everyone talks about it but does not truly understand it, the scientists behind the research chose to do this experiment to better educate people about the condition.

To find out how sleep deprivation affects humans, Dement (1960) connected participants of his study to an electroencephalogram in his sleep laboratory. The participant got woken up any time they showed signs of entering REM sleep. I was found that REM sleep deprivation made test participants more aggressive and suffered from poor concentration than the control group. They also tried to enter REM sleep straight after going to sleep. They made 26 attempts to enter REM sleep by the seventh night. It is to conclude that REM sleep is necessary for proper brain functioning as the brain goes into REM rebound, when deprived of

Combined, the foundational models and hypotheses of insomnia along with the age-related changes in sleep architecture contribute to the understanding of the consequences and implications chronic insomnia in older adults. While sleep disturbances in older adults are often considered a normal part of aging, there are associated with reduced quality of life, increased healthcare utilization, institutionalization, as well as a risk factor for poor mental and physical health (Galimi, 2010; Krishnan & Hawranlik, 2008). Insomnia in older adults can lead to disruptions of sleep in their caregivers, resulting in the decision of institutionalization of an elder. Furthermore, chronic insomnia can precipitate psychological distress and is associated with difficulties in attention, slower response times, diminished cognitive abilities, daytime sleepiness, and impaired memory (Hildalgo et al., 2007). These factors combined can increase the risk of falls, fractures, and driving accidents in the older adult. Insomnia as a risk factor for falls serves as a strong predictor of long-term care placement (Hill, et al., 2007).

The subjects for this experiment are a randomized controlled group of 2,614 college students in the UK who tested positive for insomnia (Freeman at el., p.1). The students will then be randomly split into two groups by the automated online system (p.4). One group will be treated with CBT for insomnia and the other group will be receive treatment as usual. Although it is explained that there are no exclusion criteria, all participants must be at least 18 years of age and they must test positive for insomnia. However, the participants don’t have to test positive for psychotic- like experiences, because they want to see how CBT works on the less extreme cases of insomnia (Freeman at el., p.3). The participants are chosen by taking an

In the Lack of sleep may shrink your brain by Dr. Calire E.Sexton the hypothesis of the experiment or study is: to examine the relationship between sleep quality, cortical, hippocampal volume, and atrophy within the participants, explore the effect by comparing correlations between the different ages, body mass index, and blood pressure. The study involved 147 participants (92 females, 55 males) and each has different characteristics being measured during this experiment. The dependent variable was sleep quality of the adults being measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and correlated with volume and longitudinal measures of atrophy. The independent variables being the different age groups and included physical activity, body mass

Since rumination levels were not different between the two chronotypes, we could not include them in the model as mediators. Therefore we performed four mediation analyses, first with objective sleep latency, secondly with the total PSQI score, third with the components of the PSQI and lastly with the components of the sleep diary. We included the sleep parameters in four different models because of their high correlation; ranging from r=0.25 to r=0.70. Mediator analysis showed that subjective sleep parameters such total PSQI b=-4.03, SE=1.43, CI=-7.57,-1.60, sleep quality(PSQI) b=-2.24, SE=1.10, CI=-5.06,-.60; daily dysfunction (PSQI) b=-3.06, SE=.97, CI=-5.31,-1.48; and sleep quality from the sleep diary, b=-2.84, SE=1.50, CI=-6.83,-.63;

During World War II, Russian scientists kept 5 test subjects awake for 15 days. When the experiment ended, 1 was dead, and the other 4 were cannibalizing the remains of the the man despite the steak next to them. When 20 Soviet Troopers came to retrieve the subjects, the ensuing battle left 3 soldiers dead, and 5 soldiers in a critical condition. Although we are not lab rats, in this modernizing world, we are facing some of the same problems. Sleep deprivation will lower our mental capacity, although napping can mitigate these symptoms. This article will outline the expected amounts of sleep, the disadvantages of sleep deprivation, and the benefits and drawbacks of napping