Archive for the 'Sleep Deprivation' Category

Sleep deprivation is the lack of inadequate sleep. Sleep deprivation is a common condition that afflicts 47 million American adults.

An individual can be deprived of sleep by their body and mind, insomnia, or actively deprived by another person.

Causes of Sleep Deprivation

The common causes of sleep deprivation include:

• Not allowing sufficient time for sleep
• Sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and myoclonus,
• Repeated awakenings from noise
• Excessive worry or depression
• Medical conditions that cause pain, breathing problems, and mental illnesses such as depression
• Working in night shits and travel across time zones

The symptoms of sleep deprivation can interfere with memory, energy levels, mental abilities, and emotional mood.

A study conducted by the University of Chicago Medical Center in 1999 shows that the situation drastically affects the body’s ability to metabolize glucose, leading to symptoms that mimic early-stage diabetes.

Sometimes, sleep deprivation is used as a torture device but studies show that it has been an efficient treatment for depression and other mental illnesses.

This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding pain with sleep.

A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about pain with sleep.

Twenty percent of Americans report that some kind of pain or discomfort disrupts their sleep a few nights per week or more.

This sleep disruption in turn causes deprivation of mood, behavior, energy level, and safety.

It was reported in the NSF’s Survey on Sleeplessness, Pain and the Workplace, that back pain and other body aches or joint pain were the leading kinds of pain conditions experienced at night.

The Consequences Of Pain With Sleep

Difficulty maintaining alertness, lack of energy, impaired mood, and trouble handling stress are the consequences of pain with sleep. A lack of sleep puts a person at a higher risk for injury, poor health, and accidents.

Sleep studies in patients with acute pain, such as postoperative patients, and chronic pain, such as neuropathic & rheumatologic conditions, show frequent arousals, a hard time going back to sleep, and decreased time in REM sleep.

Sleep is very important to humans. Mammals, reptiles, and birds also have to sleep.

Studies have shown that people can live longer without food than they can without sleep.

Why Do We Sleep

Although the accurate reasons for sleep remain a mystery, we do know that during sleep many of the body’s major organ and regulatory systems continue to work actively.

Some scientists have proposed that without any biological foundation we may sleep out of mere habit. Sleep may be a time for the brain to recharge. The brain shuts down and repairs neurons and exercises synapses that may slowly break down and weaken with a lack of activity during sleep.

This could be a time for fine tuning the synaptic connections that get stronger, weaken, break and reform. Sleep, it is theorized, is a time to shift those synaptic connections back to their original design after they have been jumbled up during the day.

Some parts of the brain actually raise their activity dramatically, and the body produces more of certain hormones. No one knows exactly why we sleep but several scientific theories have been proposed.

This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding sleep debts.

A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about sleep debts.

In today’s fast paced world, full of responsibilities, worries, and pressures there seems to always be a demand on our time. Running at this pace for prolonged periods of time eventually catches up and causes physical, emotional, and mental stress.

Over Scheduling

Over scheduling takes place when we have our children in every sports activity, every art class, every theatrical production, etc Being busy and never slowing down has become the equivalent of being a good mom, or happy, or whatever it is that we attain to be.

We have deadlines to meet, our daily life responsibilities, and bills to pay, end up higher on the priority list. We need to take time to sleep and rest. Sleep is a great healer of physical and emotional stress. Naps are okay. Humans need sleep.

Being overly tired makes us clumsy, irritable, and slow. Studies have shown that people who sleep less than six hours a night are at a higher risk of sleep-related motor vehicle crashes.