Posts Tagged ‘sleep loss’
Rapid eye movement sleep
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2007)
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by the rapid movement of the eyes. REM sleep is classified into two categories: tonic and phasic.[1] It was identified and defined by Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky in the early 1950s.
Criteria for REM sleep includes not only rapid eye movement, but also low muscle tone and a rapid, low voltage EEG; these features are easily discernible in a polysomnogram, the sleep study typically done for patients with suspected sleep disorders.
More Evidence on the Importance of Sleep – The Juggle
By Sue Shellenbarger
A lack of sleep can easily make a child cranky, irritable or unfocused. But can it make your elementary-school child more likely to be depressed or even delinquent?
In the latest in a series of expert warnings about the high cost of sleep deprivation, a new study of 140 elementary-school students suggests that it can. Among these third- through fifth-graders, poor sleep was linked with more aggression and delinquency, as well as a higher incidence of depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Child Development.
Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, PhD
It’s still a taboo topic: sex. Sleep deprivation may be a hot topic lately, but few people consider the toll sleeplessness has on a sex life. An article I read on WebMD summarizes the relationship between sex and sleep very well. The highlights:
- Sleep disorders and chronic sleep loss put a serious ding into a sex life. No surprise there. When some partners resort to separate bedrooms due to snoring, sleep apnea, or restless sleep, that pretty much rules out any opportunity for spontaneous action.
- The effects of sleep deprivation—low energy, fatigue, and sleepiness—won’t inspire sex. No surprise there either.
- Men with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), an inability to breathe properly during sleep, commonly report low libidos and sexual activity.
- OSA may be associated with lower testosterone levels. A 2002 study of men at the Technion Sleep Laboratory in Israel found that nearly half of those who suffered from severe sleep apnea also secreted abnormally low levels of testosterone during the night.
- Sleep loss can make you quarrelsome: you’ll be “feisty†in an irritable kind of way—not a sexy kind of way.
- Sleep loss makes you less able to cope with life’s ups and downs. Sex can be a great stress reducer, but if you don’t have energy for it, then that reduces your opportunities to unwind.
- People with insomnia are also less likely to engage in social activities. This doesn’t bode well for the single person looking to make an intimate connection.
Okay, so I’ll stop there because I could go on and on about the link between a healthy sex life and a healthy sleep life. I could argue that you can’t have one without the other.
Given the fact our relationships constitute the heart and soul of so much of our existence, you’d think we’d all preserve those relationships as best we can to in turn enhance the quality of our lives.
5 natural ways to get a good night’s sleep
Insomnia, difficulty falling asleep, waking repeatedly during the night, restlessness and other sleep disturbances keep many of us from getting the rest we need–problems compounded by the fact that Americans in general are sleeping less than they used to (see sidebar p. 41).
Conventional medicine relies mainly on pharmacological treatments, such as prescriptions of benzodiazepines, for serious sleep disturbances. But the drawbacks to this approach are many, including sedation hangover, impaired responses, decreased respiration and, possibly, drug dependency. Herbal sleep aids, on the other hand, can provide low-risk, widely accepted and proven alternatives for many common sleep disorders that aren’t caused by serious physical or psychological problems.
Tried and True
Loss Of Sleep, Even For A Single Night, Increases Inflammation In The Body
ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2008) — Loss of sleep, even for a few short hours during the night, can prompt one’s immune system to turn against healthy tissue and organs.
A new article in the September 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry, by the UCLA Cousins Center research team, reports that losing sleep for even part of one night can trigger the key cellular pathway that produces tissue-damaging inflammation. The findings suggest a good night’s sleep can ease the risk of both heart disease and autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis.
What are our daily sleep requirements?
What are our daily Sleep requirements? 
A health article about daily sleep requirements from Your Health Online the A to Z directory of dealing with Health Problems & nutritional Self Care Strategies
Its a basic necessity of life, as important to our health and well-being as air, food and water.
When we sleep well, we wake up feeling refreshed, alert and ready to face daily challenges.
Get Enough Sleep
Get Enough Sleep-or Else!
A good night’s sleep is more important to your health than you may realize
BY STEPHANIE R. KINNON
Megan Jones* knew she was tired. Though it had been more than 24 hours since the 25-year-old Vancouverite returned from New Zealand, she was still recovering from jet lag. Jones had left New Zealand on Thursday at 7 a.m., and after a 17-hour flight she arrived in Vancouver at 7:25-Thursday morning. She forced herself to stay awake all day, hoping to coerce her body into sleeping through the night.
10 Surprising Effects of Lack of Sleep
10 Things to Hate About Sleep Loss
You know lack of sleep can make you grumpy and foggy. You may not know what it can do to your sex life, memory, health, looks, and even ability to lose weight. Here are 10 surprising — and serious — effects of sleep loss.
1. Sleepiness Causes Accidents
Sleep deprivation was a factor in some of the biggest disasters in recent history: the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill, the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, and others.
It’s Not ‘Mental’: Abnormal Sleep as a Cause of Mental Symptoms
Sleep disorders can be a CAUSE of the brain symptoms being diagnosed as “mental illness.”
That seems so logical, except that for years doctors insisted that our children’s sleep problems are being caused by the “mental illness.” This is true even when we tell them… THE SLEEP ISSUES CAME FIRST. In our personal experience, just as some endocrinologists refuse to address endocrine issues in patients on psychotropic medications (see here) some neurologists/sleep specialists refuse to do sleep studies or address sleep issues when the patient has a diagnosis of “mental illness.” Their reasoning is “Of course you have sleep issues. That’s because you have bipolar [schizoaffective, depression... take your pick]” You sometimes have to go through a list of sleep specialists until you find one who is undaunted by the “mental” diagnosis.
Research has been out there backing up our parental observations (here). Although doctors keep saying the mood and psychotic disorders cause sleep disturbance — many times it is the opposite way around. SLEEP issues came FIRST. But that research has been widely ignored.
Chronic sleep loss hampers performance
Chronic sleep loss hampers performance 
A man sleeps on a bed put out for attendees of the 5th World Meeting of Families July 7, 2006 at the Valencia fairgrounds one day ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Spain.
Credit: Reuters/Victor Fraile