Did you get enough sleep last night? Do you know your body and how much sleep is needed? As an adult you should have a pretty good idea of how well you feel with the right amount of sleep. My wife gets headaches if she sleeps in past 8am. I could sleep till noon if my job wasn't in the way.
Most adults should get 6-8 hours of sleep per night. Your lazy teenager that stays up all night and sleeps all day is actually obeying his sleep hormones. His sleep messengers don't kick in till about 1am. Ours, as adults, kick in around 10:00pm.
Sleep is closely tied to good health. But experts and scientist don't know exactly why we sleep. They know for sure that all mammals sleep. But why? Maybe to regenerate our bodies and brains. The reason we know sleep is so important is because those who suffer from any of the long list of sleep disorders can attest to the health issues tied to there sleep disorder.
Disorders include but are not limited to:
Sleep ApneaSnoringInsomniaSleep DeprivationRestless Leg SyndromeNight Terrors (Sleep Terrors)Any of these disorders can cause sleep problems for both the person who suffers from it and their partner.
Did you know that you can accumulate a sleep debt? A sleep debt occurs when you do not get enough sleep, night after night. Think of it like a bank account. If your sleep account is balanced at 8 hours of sleep per night and you go out with your friends for 3 or 4 nights and only get 4-6 hours of sleep you are now sleep deprived, your account is low. Symptoms of being sleep deprived include being drowsy during the day, nodding off at your work station and needing a greater amount of stimuli to stay awake. Some people have physical problems like stomach upset and decreased appetite. The only way to bring your account current is to sleep in, let's say, on Sunday. Once you are well rested you need to go to bed early enough to keep your body well rested in the next week.
Are you thinking to yourself, "I do go to bed on time and I still fall asleep at my desk. I need 4 cups of coffee to keep me going in the morning." You, my friend, may have an addiction to caffeine. Being reliant on stimulants like coffee and nicotine will cause your body to rebel until the drug of choice is fed to your starving addiction.
Do you dream at night? Do you have nightmares? A dream can be described as "a vivid, complex, hallucinatory experience generally accepted as real by the dreamer." ( Dement ). Scientist know that all mammals sleep but do animals other than humans dream? The answer is yes. MIT scientists studied rats and found that their brain waves, while asleep, exhibited the same brain waves as when they were awake running on a circular track.
No one knows why we dream. Some dreams are pleasant and we are disappointed when we wake up and the beautiful supermodel is gone. Some dreams are terrifying and cause panic until you awaken, relieved, to find we are not naked at school but home safely in bed. Why do we have these dreams? Again scientist hardly understand sleep so they have only theories concerning dreams.
One theory presented by Sigmund Freud was that dreams are latent sexual and physical/emotional desires. That theory is all but forgotten by modern psychiatrist. But that is where we get dream analysis. Like a horoscope, they are fun to read but they are not based in science.
Another theory by Harvard University psychiatrist, James Allen Hobson, is that the brain is randomly firing neurons as we sleep. These random neurons are interpreted by our brains as dreams. He does believe that we can think about the dreams we remember and relate them to our lives possibly making them useful.
Sleep is needed by all of us. Some enjoy it more than others. Leonardo da Vinci the greatest of DREAMERS believed he could get by on short 10-20 minute sleep intervals sleeping no more than 2 hours a day. I enjoy sleeping too much to give this a try but those who have tried it boast of the added free time. I would squander that free time watching more TV or playing video games.
Sleep and dream scholars are trying to learn the how's and why's of sleep. In the future, we may find the gene or part of the brain that causes sleep and dreams. Maybe our children will raise their children taking a pill that simulates sleep thus allowing them to work 18 hour days. How cool would it be if college students could take a "sleep substitute" pill giving them an additional 6-8 hours to study (party).
I don't look forward to the sleep substitute pill. I enjoy bed time when the house becomes quiet and the kids are in bed. It's then that I decompress from the day, read a little or watch something other than Nicktoons. Ultimately, I don't have to worry about a society that doesn't sleep. I don't think it will happen in my life time...or will it? There is already a pill for shift workers that find it difficult to stay awake through the night and sleep during the day. The affliction that is being treated is excessive sleepiness (ES) secondary to shift work disorder (SWD). The drug is used to combat sleepiness thus allowing the night worker to stay awake during his or her shift. The sleep substitute pill is coming!
Ray Antonacci
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