We Spend A Third Of Our Lives Asleep

An article in Nature Neuroscience from February 2009 describes an experiment which was conducted regarding sleep and its correlation to memory. Memory was impaired after 35 hours of sleep deprivation weekly and constant shallow sleep. Regular sleep benefits memory as newly stored information is easily encoded. Proper sleep is crucial for processing and retaining new information. Those who suffer from sleep deprivation struggle to maintain new information and with comprehension skills. In order for students to maximize their learning capabilities, they need the proper sleep to be mentally prepared for

Why do we sleep is an age-old question. Scientists have studied sleep and its purpose for many years. They have conducted countless amounts of studies and have performed many experiments. Despite scientist’s efforts, there still is no concrete answer to this question. But there are several theories that might shine a light on why we sleep. Some of the possible theories to this are the brain plasticity theory, the restorative theory, and the information consolidation theory.

Dylan Etris Professor Blankenship AP Language and Composition 25 March 2016 Why We Sleep Sleep is a curious occurrence. It is a process that occurs only with time, a suitable environment, and willingness to do so (Helvig). Everyone has to sleep; however, not everyone’s sleep is the same. “In adult studies, it has been pointed out that no exact amount of ‘optimal’ sleep exists” (Dewald-Kaufmann 172). This would suggest that everyone has a different length of sleep they must achieve. If they do not, they will experience negative symptoms that develop exponentially over time (Dewald-Kaufmann 179). This works conversely, also, that a good night’s rest can aid the human body in many ways. Even though this is a simple concept to understand, it is a difficult concept to explain. One huge question that no one has been able to definitively answer is: why do we sleep? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to look at the effects of a surplus of sleep and a lack of sleep.

The article “Sleep Debt and the Mortgaged Mind” by William C. Dement and cowritten with Christopher Vaughan, appears in a chapter in The Promise of Sleep, a book reflecting on Dr. Dement’s views on the importance of sleep. The article asserts the consequences of sleep debt and the importance that it fails to receive.

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.

This paper examines five different sources of information that addresses information pertaining to wakeful resting or sleeping and the effects it has on memory garnered by experiments performed on humans and animals. Wakeful resting is defined as an individual that has not fallen asleep but has engaged in a

The question “why do we sleep?” is a very difficult question to answer. One way to think about why sleep is important is looking at sleep as if it was food. Food helps us feel better and also helps the human body function properly.There are many different assumptions on why we sleep.The first is that sleeping allows the body to repair cells damaged by metabolic

According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleeping makes up one third of a person’s lifetime. Despite that fact, people do not get nearly enough sleep to be productive.

Sleep is an altered state of consciousness. Consciousness, modern psychologists believe, is an awareness of our environment and us. Sleep is the tendency to think of rest. When people get tired they want to close their eyes, lie down and sleep. What is the reason we do this? The human

Sleep is a beneficial necessity, both from a scientific and psychological standpoint, improving both mental and physical health. It plays an essential role in our growth and development as human beings. During sleep, our brains are growing and preparing for the day ahead so that we may be productive and attentive in every daily task. Without the recommended minimum of eight hours of sleep each night, people get agitated, distracted easily, gain health problems, make bad decisions, and acquire feelings of sadness and depression. Sleep deprivation is harmful and can cause a large amount of irreversible damage to ones brain, increasing the risk of diseases, strokes, and even diabetes. Throughout history, many authors have written about characters

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.

A greater understanding of these complex and dynamic brain states has helped clarify the ways in which sleep enhances memory processing. An increasing number of sleep studies have behaviourally assessed the facilitative role of REM and NREM sleep on declarative and procedural memory performance in humans. The preliminary results provided initial evidence to the idea that hippocampal-dependent declarative memories, such as memories of personal events and fact-based information, are facilitated by NREM sleep (specifically SWS) and hippocampal-independent procedural memories are facilitated by REM sleep (Plihal & Born, 1997).

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

I. Learning a. Memory b. Lack of attention II. Safety a. Fatigue b. Decision making 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

Experimental Psychology Cover Sheet 2014-15 Student Number (7-digit number): 1313711 Candidate Number (5- digit located on your StudentInfo under Personal Details): 66078 The unit code and title: PSYC20002 Cognitive Psychology Assignment: Cognitive Essay Due date: 06/02/2015 Question Number and Essay Title: What role does sleep play in memory formation? Word count (excluding title, abstract, cover sheet and