Sleep Personal Statement

I’ve been thinking about sleep ever since reading Maria Konnikova’s fascinating, three-part series for The New Yorker on sleep. And then my wife, Crystal, read the series, which got us both thinking about it, and talking about it, and experimenting with it.

Thesis: Sleep plays an essential part in a person’s health and well-being; the way we feel while awake is dependent upon what happens to your body while asleep.

The sleep assessment conducted on the patient had an interesting dynamic in how we think we sleep opposed to how our partner says we sleep. The patient wakes up every morning at 6 a.m. and takes a nap right after lunchtime approximately at 1 p.m. The daily naps, according to the patient, last about forty-five minutes to an hour. When asked about restlessness when waking up the patient with a stern voice and pointed finger says, "When I'm up I'm up and ready to go." The patient also explained that they have no trouble staying asleep; however going to sleep can be challenging depending on if anything troubling is on her mind.

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.

I know that personally, I take sleep for granted. Having the ability to lie down after a long day and close my eyes, knowing that in the morning I will wake feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, is something that I haven’t really thought twice about. From reading this chapter, I have learned that many individuals are not so lucky. Sleep-wake disorders can affect a person’s life in tremendous ways. This broad category is broken down into two more specific categories – Dyssomnias and Parasomnias.

The average human spends about 25 years of their life sleeping. That is equal to one-third of a person’s life. So if sleep is vital and common among every single human, what do you know about it? What happens when we sleep (Attention Grabber)? Before the 1950s, scientists believed that the brain would just “shut off” when we would go to sleep. It wasn’t until the discovery of the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) state that scientists really looked into what happens in the brain while we are asleep. Studies have found that we go through a cycle of stages during sleep, and it is important for our health (Orientation to Topic). Today, I am going to inform you about what really happens when we sleep, and some issues that are found among it (Specific Purpose). In order to really understand this worldwide commonality, you need to know some background on sleep, the stages in the cycle, and some common disorders (Central Idea). I have taken a year long psychology course that went into depth on sleep psychology, and I have done extensive research on the topic to better grasp it (Statement of Credibility). I want to inform you on sleep so you can understand what happens when you close your eyes every night, and so you can detect any irregularities in your sleep pattern (Statement of Goodwill). First, I will give a background of why and how we know to sleep, then I will explain the stages in the sleep cycle, and finally I will tell you about some common disorders (Preview).

There are two types of sleep: non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep, which is divided into four stages and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. A sleep episode begins with a short period of four NREM stages and finally goes to REM. However, individuals don’t remain in REM sleep for the whole night sleep; it will loop between stages of NREM and REM throughout the night. The function of alternations between these two types of sleep is not yet understood, but irregular cycling and absent sleep stages are associated with sleep disorders. (1) Sleep patterns change continuously and considerably with age. The general trend is that sleep efficiency decline with age. Newborns sleep about 16 to 18 hours per day, young children (age 2- age 5) from 11 to 13 hours, adolescents from 8 to 10 hours, adults from 7-9 hours and elderly people are more complicated because of individuals’ health status, age, gender, work, and emotion. (What Happens to Your Body When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep). Every report has a different range of sleeping hours because some people have jobs at midnight, and they cannot sleep at night. Many parents don’t get seven or eight hours sleep because they need to feed their children or change the diaper when their children need it. Many people don’t really know how many hours they need to sleep for a night because they are busy with their jobs and always work

Sleep has been an important topic of research for many years. Early sleep literature only reported observations from sleep habits to compare and contrast with the data taken from the wake state. Before the majority of the science behind sleep was discovered, it was assumed that sleep was when the brain “turned off” and was in an entirely homogeneous state (Dement, 1998). Slowly, advancements were made in the study of sleep, including in 1729 when Jean Jacques d’Ortous deMairan demonstrated the persistence of circadian rhythms and in 1877 when narcolepsy was first described in medical literature (Dement, 1998; “Sleep Research Timeline”, 2017). Sleep research has since become much more advanced and is progressing quickly.

The in-depth quality of the “Sleep-Wake” paper may be linked to the qualifications of its authors. All three sources were written by some level of expert within the field. Keith J. Anderson, the writer of the article “College Students try to Cheat Sleep Needs” for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has a Ph D., yet is only a counselor for Gallagher Health Center. The four authors of the Biological Rhythm Research study are all very highly specialized in this area. As workers and researchers for the Physiology Department for the Chronobiological Laboratory in Natal, Brazil, they deal with the intricacies of sleep and its effects on the human body daily. The people who wrote the “Sleep-Wake” pattern are also very well educated and conditioned to address the topic of sleep and its effect on college students. Two of these authors are professors with the Department of the Sciences of Education at an international university, while the third author works directly with the Sleep Disorders Unit inside of the

Sleep is undeniably a necessity for humans and other animals alike. At the beginning of each day, our bodies awake like clockwork in conjunction with the rising sun. Then, at day’s end, they begin to wind down into sleep until the morning. While there certainly may be plenty of mysteries revolving sleep that have yet to been unraveled, from all the way up until now and for centuries to come, it is evident that sleep should hold priority in the schedules of all people. Yet, despite all of this being true, sleep is consistently being taken for granted. And, it is not an overgeneralization to say that many people have, at least once, trudged through a late night as many people have. Even to the point of the night no longer being considered “a

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

Sleep is a subjective phenomenon in which each individual is unique with respect to their interpretation of what normal or good sleep means to them. There has been continuous debate concerning what normal sleep means and how it is defined. It is important to understand that the physiology of sleep is constantly evolving in many individuals. For instance, sleep patterns change as one ages. While children have a greater ratio of NREM sleep in comparison to adults, adults demonstrate a greater ratio of REM sleep, compared to children. In addition to age differences, gender has also been shown to demonstrate differences in sleep, most notably in adults. For example, it has been shown that women tend to have a higher percentage of slow wave sleep (SWS) than men. Nevertheless, it is still unclear what determines the definition of normal sleep (1). A multitude of methods and tools have been created to measure normal sleep, both subjective and objective. This includes questionnaires, diaries,

Sleep is a basic human need, it affects how we function on a daily basis and is essential for a person’s health and well being. Sleeping allows the body to recharge and affords the brain the opportunity to integrate important facts, memories and emotional impressions recorded from the previous day. There are five stages of sleep that people go through: Stages one, two, three, four, and Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Sleep is important for all human beings but the amount of sleep each person needs is dependent on many different factors, for example age. Infants generally need sixteen hours of sleep a day, teenagers need about nine hours, and for most adults, seven to eight hours a night is ideal. If people do not sleep enough for several nights they

Veronique Greenwood’s article, “Why Do We Need to Sleep?” was written in early January for The Atlantic. The studies for the article were located in Tsukuba, Japan. In Tsukuba, there is a new institution, the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine. The institution was built for researchers to be able to do more in depth studies of sleep. The benefits of sleep are still mysterious, however, there is still hope in uncovering these sleepy mysteries. The man behind the institution is the director, Masashi Yanagisawa; who created it to learn more about the basic biology of sleep, rather than the causes and treatment of sleep problems. If there is someone or thing that is awake for a long period of time they will eventually have a

Most people know that humans need a good night’s sleep to be able to function properly during waking hours. But what constitutes a “good night’s sleep?” Four hours? Five hours or more? On the contrary, many psychologists believe that the key to a good night’s sleep is less about an exact amount of sleep, but moreso one’s ability to move through all stages of sleep uninterrupted. For example, if my roommate is in and out of the room all night, it may not disrupt the amount of hour I am able to sleep; however, it would certainly disrupt the transitions of my sleep cycles. Sleep interruption in any cycle can be detrimental to one’s ability to obtain a good night’s sleep.