Sleep disorders are an underestimated public health concern considering that fifty to seventy million Americans are affected. Technological advances in the field of sleep have facilitated various theories to explain the need for and the purpose of sleep. Scientist have uncovered many types of sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy. Sleep disorders affect men ,women, children, the elderly, and the obese in different ways. Factors such as the number of children and the effects of menopause have been studied to determine their effects on sleep. Various treatments have been utilized ranging from non-pharmacologic to pharmacologic methods. Scientist have pinpointed areas of the brain that are involved in sleep deprivation and hormones that ultimately affect sleep. Patricia Alpert and colleagues (2011), state that fifty to seventy million Americans have chronic sleep and wakefulness disorders. Those most affected are women and ethnically are non-Hispanic Blacks compared with all other ethnic adults. According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need an average of seven to nine hours of sleep per night. However, as a general rule the length of sleep varies per individual. Technological advancements such as the electroencephalograph (EEG), that can measure activity of the sleeping brain, have facilitated various theories to explain the necessity of and the purpose of sleep. Sleep studies measure brain waves (EEG), eye movements (EOG), and muscle skeletal activity (EMG) using a polysomnography. We experience two phases of sleep which repeat themselves every ninety to one hundred and ten minutes, achieving approximately five complete cycles per night. The phases are non- rapi... ... middle of paper ... ...an, L., Nadaraja, D., Onen, F., & Richards, K. C. (2011). Perceived effectiveness of diverse sleep treatments in older adults. Journal Of The American Geriatrics Society, 59(2), 297-303. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2010.03247.x Kyle, S. D., Espie, C. A., & Morgan, K. (2010). “… Not just a minor thing, it is something major, which stops you from functioning daily”: Quality of life and daytime functioning in insomnia. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 8(3), 123-140. doi:10.1080/15402002.2010.487450 Siddique, M. I., Mahmud, I., & Siddique, R. M. (2010). Obesity and sleep disorders: Implications for bariatric patients. Bariatric Nursing And Surgical Patient Care, 5(1), 75-79. doi:10.1089/bar.2009.9937 Vandekerckhove, M., & Cluydts, R. (2010). The emotional brain and sleep: An intimate relationship. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 14(4), 219-226. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2010.01.002
Chronic sleep loss is becoming more common in modern culture and less restricted to sleep-deprived diseases such as insomnia. Suggested to be the result of a number car, industrial, medical, and other occupational accidents, sleep deprivation is beginning to be recognized as a public concern. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control
Millions of people suffer from the same tossing and turning every which way, getting their sheets all disarranged and their insistent minds abundantly worse. Patients often proclaim indications of insomnia while sitting in the family health clinic. Insomnia traits include hindrance falling asleep, continueing to awaken, and rejuvenating before wanted. One may suffer from insomnia if one shows signs of an increased difficulty in attentiveness, decreased communal or scholastic skills, and a diminished mood or enthusiasm. (Foldvary-Schaefer 111). Countless individuals deal with insomnia for a large amount of their lives and some choose differing treatments, while some do not use any treatments at all. While never being uncommon, the amounts of causes leading to insomnia come in boundlessly; finding new studies and stories every day.
Each year at least 40 million Americans suffer from long term, persistent sleep disorders, and an additional 20 million experience occasional sleeping problems. About 60 million Americans a year have insomnia and it tends to increase with age and affects about 40 percent of women and 30 percent of men. It is estimated that 18 million Americas are suffering from sleep apnea, 12 million have RLS, and 250,000 are affected by narcolepsy. Adults typically need between 6 and 10 hours of sleep per 24 hour period, and most people need approximately 8 hours of sleep per day. Infants generally need about 16 hours per day; whereas, teenagers require 9 hours on average. In the first 3 months of...
The National Sleep Foundation describes sadness as an emotion experienced by humans in difficult times. Findings show that constant emotions are found in depression. Furthermore depression is not something which simply will disappear. Additionally, symptoms may reoccur throughout a person’s lifetime. Overall sleep and depressive illness can be a complex relationship. In general depression can bring about long term problems in sleep disorders stemming from depression. Sleep problems and risk factors may share biological factor and risk factors. These factors lead to important concepts discussed in the article such as insomnia and sleep apnea treatments strategies. Research has found people who have depression are more likely to develop insomnia and suffer from insomniatic symptoms. Some these symptoms include sleep maintenance insomnia, daytime sleepiness, difficulty falling asleep (onset insomnia), and refreshing sleep. Justly researchers suggest depression development is high among those who have both onset insomnia and sleep maintenance insomnia. In 2006, the NSF polls focused on 11-17 ages in children. One of slee...
into how different parts of the brain are behaving during sleep and how to influence those parts to give us the best or worst
In normal sleeping patterns a person usually passes through five phases of sleep, the fifth being REM. The sleeping human passes cyclically through these five phases throughout a night's rest. These phases can be defined in electrical activity of the brain; much like the activity of the heart is often defined. The technique of measuring the electrical activity of the brain is call Electro-encephalogram, or EEG. When the electrical events of a person's brain are graphed on a electrical magnitude versus time axis the graph of a person who is in different stages of being asleep or awake appear to have different levels of electrical activity occurring in the brain. (See (14))
Sleep is one of our basic needs to survive and to function in day to day operations, but not everyone needs the same amount of sleep. Some people can survive on very little sleep, i.e. five hours a night, and some people need a lot of sleep, to the extend that they are sleeping up to 10 to sometimes 15 hours a night (Nature, 2005). According to Wilson (2005) the general rule states that most people need from seven to eight hours of sleep. The deprivation of sleep in our society in continually increasing with the demands in society increasing work loads, the myth that a few hours of sleep is only necessary to function properly and that sleep is sometimes considered as killing time (Nature, 2005). Sometimes sleep deprivation is also caused by other situations like sleep disorders, i.e. sleep apnea, chronic insomnia or medical conditions such as stress (Wilson, 2005).
Kales, A. (1972). The evaluation and treatment of sleep disorders : Pharmacological and psychological studies. In M. Chase (ed.)The Sleeping Brain. Los Angeles : Brain Information Service.
Sleeping is something that is an essential part of human nature and is a must in order for one to be a functional human being. Sleep is an idea that is accompanied by many wives’ tales, including the ideas that one needs seven to eight hours of sleep each night and alcohol helps one fall asleep and sleep more soundly. One myth about sleep is that during sleeping, one is in a state of nothingness. In truth, however, it has been discovered that during sleep the brain is active, variations in heartbeat and breathing occur, and the eyes and ears are active throughout the time of sleep. These activities during a person’s sleep are important because they help that person be more aware, awake, and alert during consciousness. If all of these important activities occur during sleep, why is it that people are so willing to short themselves of this vital activity? Although much about sleep still remains a mystery, research and experiments continue to show how important sleep is to each and every person. Throughout this paper, I will discuss sleep and the effects that it has on performance and health, especially in college students. A college student’s sleeping pattern is a reliable indicator to their level of performance in the classroom and other school-affiliated activities, as a lack of sleep leads to decreased performance. Sleep is directly related the level of performance and health in an individual; the more rested a person is, the better that person will perform and feel (Dryer, 2006).
Important public policy issues have arisen in our modern 24-hour society, where it is crucial to weigh the value of sleep versus wakefulness. Scientific knowledge about sleep is currently insufficient to resolve the political and academic debates raging about how much and when people should sleep. These issues affect almost everybody, from the shift worker to the international traveler, from the physician to the policy maker, from the anthropologist to the student preparing for an exam.
“Twelve Simple Tips to Improve Your Sleep.” (2009, Dec. 18). The Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Healthy
Heilman, E. (2000). Rest for the Weary: Words from an Insomnia Expert. Retrieved March 21, 2005 from http://www.healthysleeping.com/
Sleep and Sleep Disorders. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 July 2013. Web. 7 May 2014. .
Wells, M., & Vaughn, B. V. (2012). Poor Sleep Challenging the Health of a Nation. Neurodiagnostic Journal,52(3), 233-249.