night night, don’t et the bed bugs bite! from conscious to unconscious and everything in-between

Night night, don’t et the bed bugs bite!

From conscious to unconscious and everything in-between.

• The awareness of oneself, and one’s environment

Consciousness

What behaviors and mental processes lie in these conscious levels of awareness?

Conscious?Preconscious?Unconscious?Where does sleeping fit in?

The Unconscious Behavior of Sleeping

• To begin our unit on Consciousness, why not begin with an unconscious behavior and mental process?

• Catching up on some sleep science

SLEEP

Sleep stages are defined in terms of brain-wave patterns, which are measured by an EEG – the sticky pads all over your head that record electrical activity in the brain. *if you have any…-_-**

How does my body know to sleep?

• Your sleep cycles are controlled by the circadian clock. • Circadian clock is our brains biological clock.

– Brain uses the clock to tell the body• To raise or lower body temperature• Release certain chemicals at the right time (neurotransmitters)

• You have different neurotransmitters for morning and night and your brain uses your circadian clock to release the correct ones!

As you move along the roller coaster of the sleep cycle your first stop is Stage 1, where our brain waves slow down, and brief dreamlike images (almost like photos) may pop into our consciousness. *waking up/falling back asleep for a second*

Theories on WHY we Sleep

We Sleep to Rest

• We are highly active during the day and we use a lot of energy so AWAKE is only a temporary state. We are awake to feed and reproduce.

• We sleep to gain relief from this highly active state so we can function normally both physically and mentally while awake.  

We Sleep to Heal and Grow

• Sleep also allows us to physically heal our bodies. This is marked by the constant growth and repair of the body's immune and nervous systems, as well as our muscles and bones. 

We Sleep to Learn

• Sleep may help the human brain get better organized - by filing away important memories and discarding unwanted information.

• Other sleep experiments have shown that procedural memory (your ability to perform certain skills) is dependent on REM sleep. Similarly, declarative memory (your knowledge of facts) relies on getting enough NREM Sleep.

• In a study by Turner et al, 40 people were allowed only 26 minutes sleep per night. They were given cognitive tests which showed their working memory deteriorated by 38% over four days. Without REM sleep, they found it much harder to complete memory tasks and solve problems.

We Sleep to Dream

• Everybody dreams, every night (even if you don't remember them). Dreams are an expression of our unconscious thoughts and conscious experiences. They are so important that if we are seriously sleep deprived, we actually start to dream while awake.

How much sleep is enough?– Newborns average 16-18

hours a day– 16 year olds average 10-11

hours a night– College students average- 8

hours a night– 70 year olds average- 5 hours

a night

• The amount of sleep needed varies, but everyone needs both NREM and REM sleep for normal functioning.

Bats........................20 hoursLions......................13.5 hours Laboratory rats......13 hours Domestics cats.......12.5 hours Baboons.................9.5 hours Humans..................8 hours Pilot whales............5.5 hours Asian elephants.......3 hours Roe deer.................3 hours Giraffes...................2 hours

How much do geniuses sleep?

Sleep Debt

• Do you owe?

Harmful Factors of Sleep Debt

Repaying this debt aint that Bad• Settle short-term debt. If you missed 10 hours of sleep over the

course of a week, add three to four extra sleep hours on the weekend and an extra hour or two per night the following week.

• Address a long-term debt. Plan a vacation with a light schedule and few obligations. Then, turn off the alarm clock and just sleep every night until you awake naturally.

• Avoid backsliding into a new debt cycle. Once you’ve determined how much sleep you really need, factor it into your daily schedule. Try to go to bed and get up at the same time every day — at the very least, on weekdays.

Tips

• You have one handout with you and an optional dreamy handout.– Sleeping tips for the struggling sleeper or the

insomniac.– Dreaming tips for the student who wants to

get the most out of their 24 hour days.