Stages of Sleep

Here's a simple poster illustrating our stages of sleep:

Stage 1: State of resting by closing our eyes. Our brain activity slows down, our body relaxed, but we're still conscious of our environment.

Stage 2: When awoken by others in this stage, we might not even know we've fallen asleep!

Stage 3 & 4: They are often combined and is also known as Slow Wave Sleep (SWS), a name that derives from our brain activity. Also, this is the stage where our homeostatic pressure (the intensity and need for sleep) is recovered back to "baseline".

Note: The longer we go without sleep, the higher our homeostatic pressure will be! This process in different from our body's circadian system, but rather they both complement each other. 

"Stage 5" Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep : Here, we are most likely to enter dreamworld and even able to recall what the dream was about. Researchers have been trying to find out what is the purpose of dreams and the purpose of REM sleep, and found out that REM sleep is especially critical for memory consolidation, controlling emotions as well as developing creativity.

P.S. The lady in this diagram is being hooked up to what we call a Polysomnogram (PSG), which is a diagnostic tool used in the study of sleep to measure sleep progression. The PSG has three main components - the EEG to measure the brain, EOG for our eye movements and EMG for muscle movements.

Really sleepy now, gonna head to bed now!

Insight Improved Through Sleep

I have, as I am sure many of you have, found myself stuck on a problem or a paper in school. Next time this problem strikes, the best solution may be to sleep on it. Studies, as well as many personal accounts, have found that sleep promotes insight, the sudden mental ability to gain explicit knowledge.

In one study, a number reduction task was given to subjects. The task involved finding out a final number in a series. Insight could be measured when the subjects was able guess the final number after just the second number, as they were always the same. Subjects were given the task and then either stayed awake throughout the day, stayed awake throughout the night, or were allowed to sleep before being re-tested. 60% of the subjects that were allowed to sleep gained insight to the task, compared to roughly 20% of the other two groups. This is perfect evidence to show that if you are stuck on a certain problem, sleeping on it can greatly increase your chance of solving it the next day. Responsible for this phenomena is the hippocampus playing back the newly aquired information to the neocortex. The neocortex is where the information is stored long term and can be incorporated with preexisting knowledge.

One famous example of insight gained through sleep is the creation of the periodic table by Dmitri Mendeleev. Mendeleev had been struggling to find a way to organize the elements and, after many sleepless nights, finally went to bed. During his sleep he had a dream in which he saw the periodic table of elements and recorded it upon waking. On a much smaller scale, college students can benefit from this process as well. For instance, you may find yourself stuck on a math problem and are ready to give up. Try going to sleep with the problem still fresh in your mind, you may find that upon waking the solution will become apparent. Instead of staying up for hours on end the most beneficial thing to do could be going to bed.

Citations:

Wagner, Ullrich, Steffen Gais, Hilde Haider, Rolf Verleger, and Jan Born. "Sleep Inspires Insight." Nature 427.6972 (2004): 352-55. Print.

5 Tips To Help You Fall Asleep Quickly

For many of us, the heavy workload brought on by college can severely cut into much needed sleep time. And how often do you decide to wrap up a study session because you feel too tired, only to lie down and not be able to go to sleep? Here are some tips to help you fall asleep quickly and let you wake up refreshed, ready to take on that 9 am course.

1. Limit the use of technology before bed.

The light given off by a laptop, television, and even a phone can slow the process of falling asleep. Melatonin, a sleep-promoting chemical, is inhibited by light; even staring at your computer screen can have a great effect on limiting the melatonin released. By keeping your surroundings dark prior to bedtime, more melatonin is secreted, making you more tired.

2. Nap earlier in the day and limit them to 30 minuets.

If you do have the luxury of taking a nap, try and take it in the morning or early afternoon. By taking naps earlier in the day, you limit the amount of slow wave activity, allowing yourself to still be tired come bedtime. Also, by not sleeping longer than a half hour, you decrease the chances of falling into slow wave sleep, which can also make you feel groggy upon waking.

3. Make your bed for sleeping only.

By lying in you bed while doing other activities during the day such as eating, reading, or using a computer, you are telling your brain that your bed is not just for sleep. If you only use your bed for when you are going to sleep, you will train yourself that when you lie in bed, it is time to go to sleep, and nothing else.

4. Limit caffeine consumption.

This may seem like an obvious one, but caffeine can cause more trouble than most realize. Caffeine works by binding to the adenosine receptor, blocking this sleep promoting chemical, and speeding the body up. The morning cup of coffee is fine, but caffeine in the afternoon can stay in the body past its initial effects making it difficult to fall asleep.

5. Keep your room cool.

Body temperature has a great effect on how alert or tired you feel. By keeping your room cool, you are helping the natural process of decreased body temperature in preparation for sleep. Another trick is to take a warm bath or shower before bed; this transition from warm to cool after the shower mimics the fall in body temperature before sleep.

Citations:

Achermann, Peter. "The Two-Process Model of Sleep Regulation." Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 75 (2004): A37-42. Print.

Lazarus, M. "Arousal Effect of Caffeine Depends on Adenosine A2A Receptors in the Shell of the Nucleus Accumbens." The Journal of Neuroscience 31 (2011): 10067-0075. Print.

Feeling tired in the morning and driving to college? Don't risk it. Have a good nights' sleep instead!

Keep that booze away before bedtime!

Parties and alcohol are a great mix, but definitely not alcohol and good sleep. Our body functions accordingly to an endogenous system known as the Circadian Cycle (more commonly known as the biological clock), responsible for making us feel awake or asleep whenever we need to.

If you understand how it works, you could use it to your advantage and plan your work out/study time. Unfortunately, if those cans of beer sitting in the fridge ends up down your throat, your circadian system will go out of whack and you’ll wake up to the worst morning ever (especially if alcohol was consumed prior to sleep). What’s worse, the disruption in Circadian Cycle due to alcohol abuse can increase the drive to drink, leading to a vicious cycle of alcohol dependence and circadian dysfunction.

Cut the story short, if you’ve got a morning lecture the following day which you don’t want to miss, drink in the day instead! I mean, just skip the whole party and get to bed :)

Citations:

Brager, A. J., Ruby, C. L., Prosser, R. A. and Glass, J. D. (2010), Chronic Ethanol Disrupts Circadian Photic Entrainment and Daily Locomotor Activity in the Mouse. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 34: 1266–1273. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01204.x

THAKKAR, M. M., ENGEMANN, S. C., SHARMA, R., MOHAN, R. R. & SAHOTA, P. 2010. Sleep-wakefulness in alcohol preferring and non-preferring rats following binge alcohol administration. Neuroscience, 170, 22-27.

Don’t Weed out that good night’s sleep!

Alright, let’s be honest here. A good number of college students here in America have smoked Marijuana (weed) at least once in their lifetime. We all know that ‘Herb’ has a sedative effect and makes people feel ‘high’ and carefree. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not playing the devil’s advocate here. In fact, with such rampant use of Marijuana under the table, there is a need to inform you guys about the negative effects of weed on human functioning, especially the all-important beauty sleep!

So what is it in weed that brings about such ‘high’ and carefree experiences? Well, weed’s primary active constituent is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ⁹-THC), the chemical responsible for sedative effect. It is proposed that endogenous cannabinoids from smoking weed increase adenosine (a sleep promoter), resulting in sedation. Unfortunately for you insomniacs, this is one drug you don’t want to take to help you snug in bed. What actually happens instead is, you get robbed of your good sleep (REM sleep - when memory consolidation occurs), which you wouldn’t want, especially if you’ve just saturated your brain for that test tomorrow morning. In addition, studies have shown that smoking weed reduces sleep efficiency (time spent sleeping/ time spent in bed) and longer sleep onset. What this means is, you’ll spend more time rolling on the bed than sleeping.

From a study conducted, a major problem in the treatment of Marijuana users is that up to 76% of those who abruptly stop using Marijuana report disturbed sleep (strange dreams, insomnia, poor sleep quality), possibly increasing the risk of relapse. In addition, it is reported that the Prefrontal Cortex of the brain (which plays an important role in normal sleep) showed alterations in people with insomnia, sleep deprivation and 30-day abstinent heavy Marijuana use. To put this into perspective, once you start on that weed, your sleep will be disturbed and good quality sleep will be a thing of the past, even months after cessation.

As college students, we are already so sleep deprived with all the looming deadlines and tests. Why rob yourself of more sleep by smoking weed? Don’t even start on it! :)

Citation:

Bolla KI; Lesage SR; Gamaldo CR; Neubauer DN; Funderburk FR; Cadet JL; David PM; Verdejo-Garcia A; Benbrook AR. Sleep disturbance in heavy marijuana users. SLEEP 2008;31(6):901-908.

Sleep Habits Affects Performance

It’s 2:33am (how apt!). You’re up either mugging for your upcoming exams, or rushing to complete a major project (that’s me here). And that’s because you’re determined to do well.You’re tired. Your mind drifts off. You wonder if you’re the only person staying up at this ungodly hour trying to make sense of the tiny scribbles and the words swimming in front of you.

Well, here’e answering your question: you’re not alone. But hold on, that’s NOT a good thing. By sacrificing sleep, does it translate into better academic performance? What college students are unaware is that a disruption of good sleep habits can reduce their academic performance (Jenkins, Soper, Woller, Johnson & Faes, 2009).

In today’s ever-changing society, college these days is no longer comparable to those in the past, and students in college are increasingly sleep deprived.

According to Lack (1986), 17% of students exhibiting symptoms of delayed sleep phase syndrome (a shift in your natural circadian rhythm ie. sleeping at 4am everyday and only waking up at 12pm) reported poor academic performance.

This is because the lack of sleep affects your health in memory consolidation, visual-motor reaction, vigilance, attention to task... just to name a few, and inadvertently has a negative impact on learning.

So just how tired are college students?

"College students suffer a decreased level of sleep quality [as] compared with a 'normal' adult population" 

(Buboltz et al., 2001, p. 133).

Moreover, more than half 50% of the population acknowledged morning tiredness, and nearly three quarters believed that they do not get enough sleep during the week.  More interestingly, Bulboltz et al. found out that if a student knew he had received little sleep, he would behave so (2001). This reminds me of the self-fulfilling prophecy theory I once read about where when one believes he or she (in this case, suffer from lack of sleep), he or she will feel tired, and this will lead to feelings of restlessness, unmotivated and hence do not have the perseverance to complete the day’s task.

Therefore, it’s better to get rid of the daily fatigue by practising good sleep hygiene! Refer to Cameron’s post for more tips to better sleep!

Citation:

Buboltz, W., Jenkins, S.M., Soper, B., Woller, K., Johnson, P. & Faes T. (2009). Sleep habits and patterns of college students: an expanded study. Journal of College Counseling, 12(Fall), Retrieved from EBSCOHost 

Lack, L. C. (1986). Delayed sleep and sleep loss in university students, fournal of American
College Health, 35, 105-110