Sleep Disorders Essay, Research Paper

Sleep and Sleeping Disorders

Sleep, normal, regular state of rest of an organism. In contrast to the waking stated, sleep is characterized by relative Quiescence of physiological functions(blood pressure, breathing, heartbeat). And a relatively low response to external stimuli.

What? And I thought sleep was something that you had to do when you were just to beat to party on. Well, in this report I will show that sleep is a very important part of our lives that those of us that don’t have a problem with it take for granted.

Stages of Sleep

The brain waves of a person go through certain constant changes, classified as stages 1-4, in the course of the sleep cycle. The EEG of a person in the waking state is characterized by alpha waves(8-12 cycles/sec.) And low-voltage activity if mixed frequency.

Stage on only last a few seconds with very low voltage(activity). Then it gives way to stage two with a pattern showing frequent spindle-shaped tracing on the EEG, called sleep spindles, a 13 – 15 cyclessec, and certain high-voltage spikes known as K-complexes. Soon to follow is the third stage of sleep that begins the appearance of delta waves. Eventually, in stage four these delta waves occupy the major art of the record.

Dreaming Sleep

If the EEG mumbo jumbo loses you then here the dreaming states will clear things up for you.

The stages that I wrote about are really how deep of sleep your brain is in. When you first lay down to sleep, you can notice that you begin to drift off. And little by little you are unaware of your surroundings. The depth of sleep varies during your sleep. The periods are referred to a D-(desynchronized or dreaming )sleep: the remainder of sleep is called S(synchronized) sleep. These two states are also known, respectively, an REM.(rapid-eye-movement) sleep and NREM(non-rapid-eve-movement) sleep: or just simple active sleep and quiet sleep.

Functions of Sleep and Sleep Requirements

You would think that the question on how much sleep or even if we should sleep had been answered by the mothers of America.But yet some scientists believe that sleep has no biological function and is simply a sort of habit. But most scientists do believe that there are most probably two functions, related to the two states of sleep. The S-sleep probably plays a role in the restoration of the body and brain and the metabolic need. So the S-sleep plays a role in the restuction of the body and brain, even helping in the synthesis of large molecules such as proteins and ribonucleic acids. The D-sleep plays a more complex role in providing restoration of brain processes – specially so higher level brain processes in focusing attention.

The amount of sleep seems to vary person to person though. It is not established exactly how much sleep is needed to have a healthy life. Some people need as little as five hours of sleep while others 10 barely does the job. Many people I talked to though believed that age has a definite role to play in how long is required.

Narcolepsy, is a disorder that causes one to fall asleep suddenly. It caused attacks that may last for minutes or hours and that may occur several times per day. Other symptoms :include briefly period of paralysis while the person is either awake or asleep and hallucinations at the time when sleep begins. The cause of this disorder in not known. Personally I believe it is brought on in the high school years. Ha

OPINION

Sleep is grossly misunderstood, in my opinion. No matter who I talk to about sleep there is one thing they all agree on . You need your sleep to be able to function normally in your everyday life. I have at some times in my life not gotten the sleep that I needed. I can go a few days on a few hours of sleep but not much longer. If I try I start walking into the walls. I get on my parents and friends nerves.

I believe that there is a lesson to be learned about sleeping. That in life we must all listen to our bodies and it will tell us how to balance it.