Knutson And Cauter's Loss Of Sleep

This investigation examines is it possible for light pulses to alter the motor skills, and cardiac movements of biological life forms. Is it possible to change how biological lifeforms functions if we were to shine a light on them every hour at night? Knowing how most animals work, and from that of human experience I can say that light is what makes us stay awake; therefore if we have a light shined on us every hour would we lose sleep? These are the type of questions I will be answering throughout my extended essay. I will talk about how our sleep is affected by light, and monitor this so I can then record the data. I will also be discussing why we sleep. Which you may be wondering how this ties into light, however light does damage our skin

Thesis: Sleep deprivation can lead to serious health problems, make you forget information, and have a negative impact on the outlook of life.

Success in life is typically measured by the result of what is accomplished during the waking hours. The degree of effectiveness of those hours however, depend on effective rest. “Sleep is integral to the health and well-being of all people” (Wells 233). Sleep is simply defined as the body’s rest cycle – a time to recharge. The widely accepted metric for normal or sufficient sleep is about 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. When this metric is not met, either through total sleep loss or accumulated sleep debt, the effect can be dire, “Sleep deprivation results in poor memorizing, schematic thinking, which yields wrong decisions, and emotional disturbances such as deteriorated interpersonal responses and increased aggressiveness” (Orzeł-Gryglewska 95). Sleep deprivation hinders the abilities of the mind, harms the body, and shortens length of life.

The Rapidity of Sleep is a unique piece of artwork. The more times a viewer stares at this piece the more revealing to the observer it becomes. The painting has so much to tell in one picture that each person who looks upon it may get a different story. But the content always stays the same. The form and content will always remain the same, although to each viewer, may mean something different than what is depicted.

The effects of long work hours, resulting in insufficient sleep have been well documented (Rogers, 2008). Insufficient sleep alone has been noted to cause cognitive problems, mood alterations, reduced job performance, reduced motivation, increased safety risks, and physiological changes (Rogers, 2008). Failure to obtain a sufficient amount of sleep is even an important contributor to medical errors (Rogers, 2008). Now think of the effects of sleep, and add in stressful work environments, short-staffing, pressure from administration, and unexpected events, we can begin to realize how patient outcomes may be greatly compromised.

The first example the author uses is a young adult name Randy Gardner. For a science project, he has deprived himself of sleep for 11 days in a row. A scientist named William Dement kept track of Randy’s brain function during the course of the experiment. Early on in the experiment, his symptoms included: forgetfulness, nausea and irritability. After sleep deprivation for five days he was experiencing paranoia, symptoms of Alzheimer’s and severe disorientation. During the last few days he was experiencing trembling fingers, slurred speech and a loss of motor function.

Day by day, if one were to consistently voluntarily restrict their sleeping hours, he or she would gradually build up what is referred to as “sleep debt”. Sleep debt defines the cumulative effect of reduced sleep hours. (Dinges et al., 1997) The more and more the sleep debt grows from not getting a single good night’s rest, the more moody, irritable, and incoherent a person can get. While there are no limits to the extent of how moody, irritable, and incoherent someone can become, there gets to a certain point where a person’s awareness of how tired or sleepy he or she is goes down. In addition to that, increased sleep debt has also resulted in a decrease in the responsiveness of cognitive brain functions. This phenomena is what is being described and what occurred in the introductory anecdote above. It was not because of the body genuinely feeling less tired and drowsy more so was it that the awareness of the hypothetical person to recognize how tired he/she was has gone down. In reality, it will take more than a few hours to fully recover from sleep deprivation. Based on a study focusing on the effects of cumulative sleep debt, a sample size of 16 adults were chosen and were forced to sleep approximately 5 hours each night, well under the recommended average. (Dinges et al., 1997) The results of this study show that there is

While much research has been conducted regarding sleep deprivation Tatar J, et al. 2006 demonstrates the results of sleep

One of the most fascinating natural occurrences known to science is something everyone's body requires them to do, this strange phenomenon is sleep. Sleep is not fully understood by anyone, there are too many variables and unanswered questions to discover what sleep is for and why the human body stresses sleeping so much. Dreams are just as undiscovered as sleep. There are many observations made about dreams and what parts of the brain are utilized during these inter-sleep hallucinations. But like sleep, there is no official reason or meaning behind it. Sleep and dreams, although strange and without apparent purpose, reveal many things about an individual, his or her habits, and potentially innermost subconscious thoughts.

A person who is known as a night owl has a circadian phase sleep disorder known as Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome/Disorder (DSPS), this is when the person falls asleep “2-6 hours later relative to desired and socially conventional rise times”. This condition leads to societal and health disadvantages, resulting from inadequate amount of hours spent sleeping. With chronic inadequate sleep, DSPS can lead to weight gain, depression, anxiety disorders, diabetes, heart disease; however given the right environment a person can live with DSPS without ill effects. (3)

Out of the four main sleep theories, I believe cognitive development best relates to the events of today, and the medical procedure Joel received. I believe cognitive development relates well to the events of today because as said by G. William Domhoff (2014) “dreams dramatize our wishes, fears, concerns, and interest in striking scenarios that we experience as real events.” If you take a look at the categories of dream content Domhoff states, you realize most of your dreams you have had before fall into one or more of those categories. If you were to think back you could probably recall waking up after having a nightmare upset and with a racing heart. This is because dreams are so dramatically real like Domhoof states, and this explains why

There are two types of sleep deprivation: acute and chronic. Acute sleep deprivation refers to not getting any sleep or reducing the amount of time slept for one night or a couple of nights. In contrast, chronic sleep deprivation results when an individual constantly does not get enough sleep for multiple nights during weeks, months, or even years. In emergency medical services, a majority of emergency medical technicians and paramedics suffer from chronic sleep deprivation. While there are a lot of contributors to sleep deprivation, my research revealed that shift work was a major cause. Shift work involves working outside the conventional 9 am to 5 pm day and includes early morning shifts, evening or night shifts, and rotating shifts. This

What do the effects of sleep deprivation have on people? When a person does not get enough sleep, he or she is depriving his or her body of something that it needs. A delightful sleep is one of the most satisfying human experiences with a role to play in supporting a good mood and cognitive acuity as well as in promoting physiologic balance and resilience (Chittora, Jain and Suhalka). People think because they get an insufficient number of hours of sleep, they will not have an emotional impact by it. Sleep is a required need for peoples’ day to day life to be able to perform and stay healthy emotionally and physically. The effects of sleep deprivation are an issue because it affects mood, performance, and health.

One philosophy I held on to this semester is this: get enough sleep, sleep deprivation is not hard work.

Reduced amounts of sleep reduces reaction time and reasoning skills. These factors could result in medication errors, charting errors and medical decision errors. Studies have shown that “prolonged periods of wakefulness (i.e., 20 to 25 hours without sleep) can produce performance decrements equivalent to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.01 percent” (Lamond, N. and Dawson, D. 1999). Fatigue is a major issue when it comes to the human body. Physiological risks associated with fatigue include cancer, heart disease, diabetes, GI disorders, obesity and mental health issues such as anxiety and fatigue. “Work related musculoskeletal injuries and needlestick injuries also increase... Small but important changes in patient status, medication or new