The Effects Of Light Emitting Electronics On The Human Sleep Cycle

One of the main symptoms of sleep deprivation is excessive daytime sleepiness in addition to poor memory, poor concentration, and depressed mood (Colten, Altevogt, & Institute of medicine, 2006). As time goes by for adults, sleep deprivation increases, and studies have shown that about 18% of adults in the US report getting insufficient sleep.

According to the study, the behaviors can either be reduced or limited to certain times of the day. For example, avoid drinking caffeinated drinks within 2 hours of bed so that you do not disrupt your body’s metabolism. Other activities that interfere with sleep are frequent napping, spending excessive time in bed, having variable bedtimes and different wake-times. Also, activities such as taking stimulants near bedtime hours, use of the bed for non-sleep related activities, poor bedroom environment and engaging in stimulating activities near bedtime may disrupt one from sleeping early. By avoiding these activities, I will improve my sleep hygiene which will translate to getting enough

The health consequences of lack of sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness affect 50 to 70 million Americans annually. Sleep deprivation costs the United States 15 billion dollars annually in health care. In addition, industry spend $50 billion dollars in lost productivity (NIH, 2004).

In the United States, the amount of time spent sleeping and engaged in deep sleep is decreasing. According to the Center for Disease Control, 50 to 70 million Americans have problems with a sleep disorder like sleep apnea and insomnia. On average, 35 percent of individuals receive less than seven hours of sleep during the night, and 37.9 percent of people admit to unintentionally falling asleep during the day.

Some believe that today 's society is not sleep deprived from technology, but rather sleep deprived from other reasons. An article from Better Health stated that some of these reasons why we are sleep deprived are due to personal choice, illness, work, sleeping disorder, medications that we may be taking, the environment that you are sleeping in, sleep hygiene is poor, and sleep disruptions (Sleep Deprivation). Personal choice would be that you want to stay up and not go to sleep at a reasonable time. This may be due to social media, social life, or many other reasons. Illness, if you are sick you may not be getting adequate sleep due to coughing, trouble breathing, and snoring. When you are sick you will get very little REM sleep which is very important to feeling rested. When a person is working night shift or very

Generally, individuals need seven to nine hours of sleep each night to function properly throughout the day; it is thought that over sixty-eight percent of people get less than eight hours of sleep (Hughes & Rogers, 2004). The circadian rhythm is what facilitates our sleep cycles and determines when we go to sleep; there is two types of sleep REM and Non-REM sleep (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2016). Non-REM sleep is typically the antecedent for REM sleep, here rapid eye movement occurs and this is where dreams occur (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2016). There are five stages of sleep that each person goes through each time they sleep, in non-REM sleep, there are four stages and REM is the fifth stage (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2016). Stage one consists of the transition from feeling wake to “falling asleep”, this typically lasts one to seven minutes (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2016). Here the individual experiences loss of response to stimuli and experience waves of thoughts and images (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2016). Stage two of non-REM sleep is the

One big problem with modern day technology, is that it is affecting our sleep. Most of us technophile teens are used to falling to sleep with TV’s light flickering a show to soothe us into sleep. Others might end the day by scrolling their social media’s news feed until their eyes begin to feel heavy. For example, a recent poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that 95% of people use some type of computer, video game, or cell phone at least a few nights a week within the hour before bed (www.sleepfoundation.org). Unfortunately, those night time rituals are most likely messing with their sleep patterns. Neuroscientists presume the glowing lights emitted by TV, smartphone and laptop screens mess with your body's sleep-inducing hormones

Doing the sleeping inventory evaluation, I learned that a lot of the things I do daily that affect my sleep. An example would be, not getting enough exercise. Being physically active during the day will make you more tired at the end of the day which makes it easier to sleep and much faster! Something I do every night before I go to bed, is staying up late on my phone. You shouldn’t be on your phone, watching tv or reading a book in bed, because it can make it harder to calm yourself to fall asleep because you are focusing, I will give myself an hour to unwind before going to sleep.

There are so many different issues associated with sleeping. Just to name a few different sleep issues are sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, jet lag, and narcolepsy. Most people have some sort of trouble of sleeping but when it becomes an ongoing issue this is when it is time to consult with a doctor. Problems that are ongoing or reoccurring are called sleep disorders. Sleep disorders can affect your everyday life and can lead to serious problems. Not getting enough sleep can have a negative impact on your energy, emotional balance, and health. In the article, Sleep Disorders and Sleeping Problems it states, “According to the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, at least 40 million American’s suffer from chronic, long term

Normally a person sleeps 8 hours a night gives or take a few hours, but it is extremely crucial for your body to get the proper amount of sleep. Actually, some people can get by with as little as 3 hours, and some people would most gladly take more than the 8 hours, but why is sleep so important? Sleep is important because it is associated with growth in the body, hormones regulations, and it relaxes the muscles when in sleep, but not having enough sleep will leave a person to be sleep deprived. In other words, this will be about how sleep affects the human body, while sleeping, or when a person is awake.

Stage 1 of NREM is the lightest sleep, it lasts about 10 minutes and is presents only 5% of our total sleep time. During this stage we are transitioning from being awake to falling asleep. Our eyes move slowly as well as brain waves and muscle activity begins to decrease. Many people who are in this stage may also experience hypnic myoclonia; sudden muscle contractions. Following stage 1 is stage 2 a deeper sleep, because a person passes through this stage many times it accounts for 50% of our total sleep. When entering stage 2 eye movement stops, heart rate slows, and brain activity decreases, with occasional rapid waves called sleep spindles. Stage 3 and stage 4 is a deep sleep, it is the most difficult to awaken someone from this stage. These stages are often called “slow wave sleep” (SWS) or “delta sleep”. Stage 3 and 4 are characterized by delta waves, which are very slow brain waves with a high amplitude, there is no eye movement or muscle activity and both temperature and blood pressure decreases. Children might experience night terrors, and bedwetting during SWS, and those who wake up from SWS often feel confused and disoriented for several

This stage last for about 20 minutes and people generally spend about 50% of their time sleeping in this stage. Stage 3 is the deepest stage of sleep. The voluntary muscles become relaxed and blood pressure and breathing slows down. The brain then starts to produce deep and slow delta waves. At this point, the sleeping individual is unresponsive and does not respond easily to noises around them. People spend about 75% of their sleep time in this stage. (Cherry,

Sleep is very important for us, it's a way our brain can rest for a few hours, therefore, not sleeping enough is not healthy. There are two types of sleep disorders, Dyssomnias and Parasomnias. Dyssomnias consists of issues with amount, timing, and quality of sleep, there are three examples of dyssomnias, which are the following, insomnia, narcolepsy, and sleep apnea. When individuals are challenging with falling asleep, staying asleep or even waking up in the morning, it's considered to be insomnia. Narcolepsy is when an individual out of nowhere experiences onsets of sleep during the day and sleep apnea is when someone has irregular breathing during their sleep. By contrast, parasomnias is associated with disturbances during sleep that are

We spend one third of our lives doing it, and yet, some of us never seem to be able to get enough. People all over the world don’t receive enough sleep whether it’s from a medical condition like narcolepsy, or simply not having enough time in a day. The effects of getting a good night’s rest are essential and signs of sleep depravation are not as hard to spot as one may think.

In (1), Heller shows that once a person is asleep, exposure to light in repeated millisecond flashes can postpone circadian salivary activity. This implies that exposure to light might shift the entire circadian rhythm, which in turn implies that controlled exposure to light once asleep could be an effective, non-invasive treatment for patients with misaligned circadian rhythms. The control of the light exposure is essential, as Heller’s novel millisecond-based approach averted the problem run into by many previous studies on the effects of