The Effect Of Sleep On The Regulation Of Emotional Reactivity And Mood And Particular The Role Of Rapid Eye Movement

Sleep is important for our health and well-being. Extensive research has been done on the effects of sleep. These studies consistently show that sleep plays a vital role in promoting physical health, longevity, and emotional well-being. This explains why, after a good night's sleep, we feel better, our thoughts are clearer, and our emotions are less fragile. Without adequate sleep our judgment, mood, and ability to learn and retain information are weakened.

·         What are 5 emotional effects of sleep deprivation? Lower anger threshold, increased irritability, increased frustration, increased nervousness, difficulty in handling stress

Review of The Twenty-four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives by Rosalind Cartwright 224 pages Oxford University Press, USA; * edition (June 24, 2010)

According to this study, sleep is critical in the effectiveness of PTSD treatment. It suggests that poor sleep can impair a person’s ability to fully benefit from exposure-based treatments for PTSD (Wood, 2014). Researchers believe that by treating sleep before treating daytime symptoms of PTSD and test if people who are sleeping better thrive more from exposure therapy (Wood, 2014). Studies done on animal conditioning of fear showed that the animals’ rapid eye movement was disrupted in animals with a conditioned fear (Wood, 2014). “ For their study, researchers recruited 42 healthy volunteers who were tested over three consecutive days and nights. They found that increased safety signaling was associated with increased REM sleep consolidation at night. They also found that the quality of overnight REM sleep was related to how well volunteers managed fear conditioning” (Wood, 2014).

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.

Sleep deprivation is a serious concern among college students, who are "among the most sleep-deprived age group in the United States," (Central Michigan University, 2008). It is important to study the causes of sleep deprivation, or sleep disorders, among college students. According to Park (2009), "dozens of studies have linked an increase in nightly sleep to better cognition and alertness." A study by Central Michigan University (2008) found that sleep deprivation can lead to poor academic performance, impaired driving, depression, and behavioral problems. There are several variables that may affect sleeping patterns among college students. One is genetics or biological issues. It is highly

The relative amount of REM sleep in other mammals exhibits in connection with their level of development at birth also supports the idea that REM sleep must aid in development. (1) Typically, animals born relatively mature, such as dolphins, giraffes, and guinea pigs, demonstrate low-amounts of REM sleep, while animals born relatively immature, such as ferrets, armadillos, and platypuses, exhibit higher levels of REM sleep. (3) Humans fall in between the spectrum of amounts of REM sleep with platypuses having the most REM sleep and some species of dolphin and whale exhibiting none. (3)

Executive functions, sometimes also called higher-order functions of the brain refer to working memory, response selection, and inhibition. Insufficient sleep has a detrimental impact on these functions, “tasks that rely on executive processes have been reported to be particularly disrupted by sleep deprivation and this has led to the notion that Executive Functions are particularly sensitive to sleep loss” (Lo, Groeger, Santhi, Arbon, Lazar, Hasan, and Dijk 2). Cognitive performance is undoubtedly a key component for both short-term successes i.e. remembering to pick up the kids from school to accurately meeting the boss’s daily

Dr. Arsiwalla is studying the effects of sleep deprivation on the emotional development of young children

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 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.

Dreams are generally linked with rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep, which is a phase that happens near the end of a sleep cycle. REM sleep is characterized by the random movement of the eyes and heightened body and brain activity. One study proposed that there is a definitive link between dreams and emotions, where the reduction of REM sleep causes a reduction in the ability to comprehend the multifaceted emotions in everyday life (Gujar, 2011, p.117). This phase of the sleep cycle has the highest inclination of vivid dreams and studies of MRIs of the brain during REM sleep show that the amygdala and hippocampus play a key role (Gennaro, 2011, p.1458). The amygdale processes the memory of emotional reactions and the hippocampus stores information from short-term to long-term memory. These findings reveal the core mechanism and perhaps the reason that humans dream. Dreams seem to aid in processing emotions by linking them to a variety of memories. The experiences within dreams may not be real, but the emotions that accompany the images and events during REM sleep are unquestionably genuine. Without processing these emotions, the emotions build up and personal anxiety increases. With less REM sleep, people tend to be more agitated and mental disorders are more easily developed

Cognitive and emotional empathy are an important aspect in most facets of daily life. The ability to empathize with others can serve as a beneficial quality when living in today’s society. Prior studies have shown that sleep has an evident impact on one’s ability to empathize with others emotions. Sleep has been proven as a necessity and influences how the brain functions. Rises in technology have allowed for deeper research into the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain. This paper discusses the exploration of sleep deprivation and its negative correlation with an individual’s ability to use emotional and cognitive empathy. It is hypothesized that over the span of 48 hours a participants ability to experience cognitive and emotional empathy will decrease.

There have been reports which have said sleep deprivation not only increases sleepiness but it also accelerates deterioration of mood (Kaida and Niki). Sleep and mood are closely connected; poor or inadequate sleep can be the source of irritability and anxiety, while healthy sleep can enhance well-being (Sleep and Mood). Therefore, sleep is crucial to have a pleasant mood and outlook on life on a daily basis. The typical adult requires about seven to eight hours of sleep for each night to have good well-being. University of Pennsylvania researchers found that subjects who were restricted to only four and a half hours of sleep a night for one week reported feeling more stressed, angry, sad, and mentally exhausted (Sleep and Mood). Furthermore, college students who

Everyone has a bad habit in their life. Whether it’s eating that late night snack or putting things off until the last minute, many don’t realize that the things we do or the habits we have contribute a role in the stress we have in our lives. One of these habits involves sleep. Sleep is vital to a successful life and also to the decrease in the amount of stress a person experiences. At Pennsylvania State University, researchers compared insomnia patients to patients without any sleep disruptions. They found that patients with insomnia that displayed the most severe sleep disturbances secreted the highest amount of cortisol. So, getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis not only helps a person to function at full potential, but it’s also a great way to manage one’s stress and keep it at bay. Another situation that people find themselves in is when they hang out with negative people. If one hangs around negative people, they themselves tend to pick up on the “negative vibe”. When in a stressful situation, it’s always important to