Advantages of Good Sleep - Term Paper Example

Advantages of Good Sleep Proper sleep is essential and advantages of good sleep are evident. Most people underestimate the power or advantages of good sleep or they just can’t understand how effective role sleep can play in their entire life weather its economical, social or educational. Penelope A. Lewis, in her essay “The Secret World of Sleep” has explained the advantages of sleep but her approach is rather technical and experimental. Being a neuroscientist, she has explained the whole concept of sleep, its advantages and problems people are facing regarding sleep in much scientific way. People who are accustomed to see violence or who are accustomed to see terrific accidents like soldier in the army can easily suffer from PTSD, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which is a condition referred to as continuous mental stress which occurs due to severe physical or emotional shocks followed by the lack of sleep in which the victims find themselves utterly helpless and those bad memories kept on coming in their mind thus causing them to isolate themselves from entire world, moaning and suffering in their own cocoon on mental pain and misery. It’s awful. It destroys people’s lives transforming them into zombies or living dead bodies causing severe depression or in worst cases to end their lives. Worst part is most of the people completely forget their actions after PTSD. They turn BLACK. REM sleep, Rapid Eye Movement sleep, also known as paradoxical sleep, is kind of stage in sleep cycle where people see dreams and our body undergoes prominent changes including loss of reflexes and increased pulse or brain activity rate. That’s why it’s important. Its prevent heart attacks and strokes that are more common in the early morning hours. Sleep has close relation with blood vessels, blood pressure and cholesterol level so sleep is healthier for our heart. Inflammation is associated with heart disease, strokes and diabetes. People who get less sleep, less than six hours, have high inflammatory protein s in their blood than those who sleep more. People suffering from PTSD means that such people are definitely lacking normal REM sleep and there is some sort of a flaw in their sleeping cycle. Norepinephrine; a neurotransmitter is a form of hormone in a blood that has its certain effects on blood vessels and raising blood pressure. Normally during REM the level of neropinerphine neurotransmitter is low, when it gets higher it is generally associated with the high risk of PTSD which results in unconscious bodily response. Our body goes on high alert when it is sleep deficient thus causing a state of stress and increase in blood pressure and stress hormones, whose extreme high level can be fatal. Memories are sensitive. According to an idea, popularly known as reconsolidation, we can control, train and amend our memories as they become flexible with the time we use them with the help of sleep. That’s a point. Sleep bolsters our memory. Scientists can’t fully understand why we sleep or dream but when our body is resting our mind is constantly working making connections between our feelings, daily events and memories. Napping improves memory, cognitive function and mood. Penelope has used the example of books in library to explain this idea. According to her memories are just like old books in libraries which are just stored in dark deep shelves and can be used any time if needed. They face minor safety problems like dust or get rotten which made those books a bit unsafe. So when they are used, they are put back with other books or are rewritten. Memories are just like that. You can use them by picking from the corner of your brain, use them and put them back in your mind. This process can be referred to as reshelving and is healthy for our brain. It’s a complicated process and if anything goes wrong, this can cause severe damage to your brain including complete memory loss as finding resources to reshelf or putting them in a right place can be trick for most of the people. So the flexibility of memories and their reshelving can come under the heading of essence of reconsolidation. This whole concept of reconsolidation is important and useful for human beings as it can be used to eradicate the dark memories or negative aspects of disturbing memories. Many physicians have started using the idea of reconsolidation for the treatment of PTSD. They usually combine REM like eye movements with patient’s traumatic scenes which are disturbing for them or they want to get rid of. This therapy enables the victims to minimize their physiological responses thus they can recall that traumatic memory without provoking their high emotions in the memory. This whole treatment is regarded highly effective and in some cases only its one session can cure the all PTSD. Memories can really become weak and fragile every single time we use them so they can easily be amended or distracted either by the new memories or by the process of reshelving. So reconsolidation are ideal for mechanism of memories while sleep strengthened a memory as there is no resistance in that. Also we can also use the concept of reconsolidation in overnight therapy. This point explains why we understand or learn things better after sleeping or a nap. Means if you’re trying to learn something new —whether it’s Chinese or a new tennis swing— make sure you sleep well before that. Sleep can control the state of your brain. Power of sleep over brain is so strong that by controlling it we can use it to manipulate different types of sleep to our advantages. We can use sleep in both ways, to strengthen our neural representation for specific bit of knowledge or to strengthen our emotional memories. So if you want the prior one, taking nap in the afternoon are best or if you are more concerned to strengthen you emotional memories, you should go for morning naps. Means there’s a strong correlation between the time of a day when you’re sleeping and the type of sleep. Its bit tricky and surprising but that’s how human body and mind works. Shakespeare portrayed different stages of sleep and had provided the analysis of our mind in conscious and subconscious in quite dramatic way. Shakespeare has also highlighted the advantages of sleep in his writing, “Macbeth”. He used the word "ravelld sleave” in his context which is a thread or a piece of yarn. Macbeth used it as metaphor and wanted to sleep on it to kill his all frustrations and problems. To escape the chaos of his kingdom and to get everything straight. According to Macbeth sleep was essential after a tiring day of hard work and was just like warm soothing bath or the main course of a meal. He don’t only called sleep a necessity of life but also something which made life worth living. According to Macbeth “Sleep is innocent”. Lady Macbeth also understand the importance of sleep as she accused his husband of being unmanly and showing strange and weird behavior due to lack of sleep. “You lack the season of all natures, sleep” (3.4.140). This dialogue highlights the importance of sleep according to Lady Macbeth’s point of view. Here “seasons” can be referred to as different preservatives while “natures” are different shades of human beings, their attributes and their different characteristics. According to her Macbeth was not acting appropriately due to lack of sleep. He went all crazy because he was not getting his sleep. Macduff when realized that it was all Macbeth fault he vowed revenge so that “we can again/ Give to our tables meat/ Sleep to our nights/ Free from our feats and banquets bloody knives” (3.6.33-35). That’s what Penelope has kept on emphasizing in her essay that sleep is important because it strengthens our emotional and neural representations. Sleep allows us to think and manipulate smartly. Science is all about human convenience and to understand the human both physically and mentally. Scientists has spent thousands of years to understand sleep, to solve its hidden myth and how it can be used for the human benefits. In her essay Penelope Lewis has explained the ways through which we can manipulate and control our sleep and then can use it to facilitate our memory. Sleeping in the right time of the day and at right time. We can use these methods to enhance our learning skills. Moreover methods for triggering memory replay and slow waves can be used by teachers or other people who want to increase their student’s memory. “Sleep can almost be thought of as a type of medication”, says Penelope Lewis. Sleep fights your anxiety, frustration and depression. In addition to consolidating memories or to make them stronger or strengthening them our brain can reorganize and restructure our memories thus making us creative. Sleep strengthen emotional components of our memories which spur the creativity process. Our brain undergoes remarkable electrical changes during sleep which is highly effective for our brain. References Shakespeare, W. (1843). The dramatic works and poems of William Shakspeare: With notes, original and selected, and introductory remarks to each play. New-York: Published by Harper & Bros. Read More