Things you should know about Sleep

What if I tell you, you will remain unconscious one-third of your life.

Don't worry. I am talking about sleep.

Facts says a traditional human sleeps one-third of his lifetime .

Sleep a state of unconsciousness from which an individual are often aroused.

This is the standard which differentiates sleep from coma, an unconsciousness state from which an individual cannot be aroused.

The quality and quantity sleep is certainly necessary to live a healthy life . Otherwise, Sleep deprivation can lead to actual coma or even death. Insufficient sleep demolishes our immunity, risks our life to cancer and much more.

Society's apathy and sayings "I'll sleep when I'm dead" is the major cause behind failure of science to tell why we need it .

The basic of life is to collect food, protect ourselves and reproduce to continue our race.

Sleep surely stops us to do all of these.

We can't nurture ourselves while sleeping and become more susceptible to predators. We can't find mate to reproduce.

Why do we Sleep ?

Well we find a lot of answers ranging from logical saying "it's to conserve energy" to physchoanalytic saying "an unconscious state to fulfill our repressed wishes".

Here we are to deal the scientific one.

Early View

Reticular Activating System(R.A.S.), the excitatory area of our upper brain stem get tired during daytime and become inactive.

Current View

Active inhibitory process

Center located below our midpontine level of brain stem is responsible for sleep by inhibiting other parts of our brain .

In different cases, both the theories validate itself.

Apart from these area areas in brain we also have some other areas and neuronal hormones which stimulate us to sleep.

Serotonin, the happy chemical found in our body also secreted by Raphe nuclei is responsible for sleep.

Raphe nuclei in lower half of pons and in medulla have nerves branches in brainstem, thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system etc.

Our sleep is also stimulated by nucleus tractus solitarius. It can be promoted by several brain areas in diencephalon.

We went through four stages of two types of sleep.

1. Slow wave sleep or

Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) Sleep

We can understand as the deep sleep that occur after long duration of awaking and tiring day.

This sleep is relaxing and helps body in repairing our basal metabolic rate.

NREM Sleep is usually dreamless sleep but sometimes we can encounter dream and the horror one too. These dreams

are not remembered because integration in memory doesn't occur .

2. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep

REM also known as Paradoxical or desynchronized sleep. The episodes of lasts for 5 to 30 minutes appear on average every 90 minutes.

When we are extremely sleepy REM episodes may be short or absent.

It is active form of sleep in which we dream and can have active muscles movement.

Electroencephalography (EEG) pattern shows patterns similar to wakefulness.

Paradox is that even in sleep there is presence of mark activity in our brain. Acetylcholine is responsible for REM Sleep.

Although our brain is active but we are not fully aware of our surrounding.

We are difficult to arouse during NREM Sleep.

We usually wake up during episode of REM Sleep in morning.

Brain waves during wakefulness and different stages of sleep

FOUR STAGES OF SLEEP

Entering Sleep

Earliest phase

We are awake and alert.

a) NREM Stage 1

5-10 minutes

We claim we were not really asleep if someone awake us.

b) NREM Stage 2

20 minutes

Body temperature drops

Breathing and Heart Rate become more regular.

c) NREM Stage 3

Sleepwalking also tend to occur during sleep of this stage.

Earlier 3 & 4 forming total 5 stages.

d) REM

20% of total sleep.

Characterized by eye movement.

Increased respiration rate and increased brain activity.

Sequence of Sleep stage

Sleep begins Stage 1 progress into stage 2 and 3. After Stage 3 sleep, Stage 2 is repeated before REM Sleep.

Once REM Sleep, the body usually returns

Stage 2 .

Sleep cycle go through stages approximately 4-5 times during night.

We don't have any other way to redress our physical and mental health other than sleep.

Balanced diet, Exercise and Sleep is best trio to lead a healthy and successful life. Sleep enriches our mind and body boosting immunity, fighting against infection and malignancy.

Sleep has a vast role in memory, learning and being logical in day to day life.

Dreaming provides a unique virtual reality space and inspires us to be creative.