Human sleep and recovery

[orbsycli]

yeah, think about it.
when you go to sleep, you slip further and further into conciousness.
deeper and deeper, you actually fall towards death, which is ironic.
It is evident that if you wake up from a deep sleep, you will definitely feel worse than waking up from that last stage of sleep where dreams are easily remembered.

[otcartsid]

it's interesting that you point that out...I guess people would get frustrated (even if it's just subconsiously) with themselves for not being able to remember how they spent their time in dreamland

[orbsycli]

hehe. Natural balance, my friend.
Natural Balance.
The rhythms of the universe.
It all ties in.

[Khan N. Singh]

this is *somewhat* related

Bright light can suppress nighttime melatonin production in humans, but ordinary indoor light does not have this effect. This finding suggested that bright light may have other chronobiologic effects in humans as well. Eight patients who regularly became depressed in the winter (as day length shortens) significantly improved after 1 week of exposure to bright light in the morning (but not after 1 week of bright light in the evening). The antidepressant response to morning light was accompanied by an advance (shift to an earlier time) in the onset of nighttime melatonin production. These results suggest that timing may be critical for the antidepressant effects of bright light.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

[Khan N. Singh]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

yeah, think about it.
when you go to sleep, you slip further and further into conciousness.
deeper and deeper, you actually fall towards death, which is ironic.
It is evident that if you wake up from a deep sleep, you will definitely feel worse than waking up from that last stage of sleep where dreams are easily remembered.

or in my case, not wake up at all

[otcartsid]

haha Khan! and thanks for the interesting tidbit about light therapy

[niin]

One of the reason people have to sleep is to preserve memory funtions.
Research have showed that going without sleep affect you abbility to remember.

When people sleep a process take place some of the time where a kind of random firering of neurons happens. This is to preserve memory health among other things.
If you where awake while this happend....your mind(consciousnes) would try to figure out what is going on...so as to react to the incoming signals.
That is why you are unconscious while you sleep.
by the way...the body also uses another trick to prevent unconscious movements while you sleep.
If people awakes while this process is taking place (they become conscious) the random firering stop, but the mind is quick to try to figure out what the radom firering means. This is called having a dream. that is why most people normaly cant remember dreams....they dont wake up during this process.
A dream is just a story your mind put together to try to get useable data out of the random firering of neurons.

[Boerseun]

Interestingly, it has been seen that rats that were forced to be awake 24/7, died after about 20-25 days of this treatment, regardless of the rats' age at the beginning of the experiment.

The body does indeed give off a chemical to make the muscles inactive (well, mostly inactive) during sleep, in order to protect the body from harm during dream sequences. This is why a common feature of dreams is that you feel as if you can't run away from whatever scary thing chasing you.

This might also be a reason why the 'flying' theme is so common in dreams. It doesn't require any bodily movement, and would therefore be a good way of getting around in the 'scenery', whilst suffering from non-responsive muscles.

Myself, I find that I'm much more alert and can remember much better when I don't sleep 'enough'. If I go to bed at say 2:00 in the morning, and I'm up at 5:00-5:30, I'll have a fantastically mentally alert day. If I go to bed at 9:00PM and only get up at 8:00-9:00am, I'm stuffed for the whole day. I can't rememeber things, I can't talk clearly, and I don't seem to be able to actually 'wake up' for most of the day. It feels as if somebody stuffed wool in my head.

There's another disputed angle on this, that we humans (and probably other animals as well) can incur a 'sleep debt'. This 'debt' can build up to 60-70 hours of lost sleep, and will have an adverse effect on your mental and physical performance. Dunno if this is true, though.

Yawn.

[ughaibu]

As I recall it, talking in one's sleep occurs during orthodox sleep, I dont see why there need be a distinction for use of muscles associated with actions other than speech requiring them specifically to be inactivated during paradoxical sleep(?)

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

As I recall it, talking in one's sleep occurs during orthodox sleep, I dont see why there need be a distinction for use of muscles associated with actions other than speech requiring them specifically to be inactivated during paradoxical sleep(?)

I've heard a couple people talking in their sleep, and it always sounds mumbled. Either its the same story with the muscles being intentionally lamed, or I haven't been sleeping around enough, and my sample size is too small!