Ideally, you’re sleeping for about 8 hours a day, which equates to about one third of your life asleep. This isn’t on accident… although we act like it is a bad thing, we are biologically designed to sleep for this long. Sleep plays a role in the lives of all living beings. I am particularly interested in explaining why we ignore this impulse.
SOMETHING IM WONDERING - if the human brain is the most complex brain there is, why can’t we effectively control our sleep.. but every other species can? Humans be like “we can’t sleep” but continue to stay up doing who knows what… meanwhile, every other animal is like 😴 !
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|| ∧ ﾍ ||
|| ( ´ ｰ`) ｡°(zzz)
|ﾉ^⌒⌒づ`￣ ＼
( ノ ⌒ ヽ ＼
＼ ||￣￣￣￣￣||
＼,ﾉ||
|| ∧ ﾍ ||
|| ( ´ ｰ`) ｡°(zzz)
|ﾉ^⌒⌒づ`￣ ＼
( ノ ⌒ ヽ ＼
＼ ||￣￣￣￣￣||
＼,ﾉ||
Specific Groups of People When They Do Not Sleep
Sleep has the capacity to make or break the rest of your day. A consistent eight hours allowance will help to ensure that you to wake up refreshed, craving healthier foods, with an amicable mood (and an amical interpretation of other people’s moods) and ready to take on the challenges of your day ahead.
KIDS
School children have a different circadian rhythm than their parents, and since kids are still growing, the sleep patterns can vary greatly between a 12 year old boy and his 16 year old brother. They're wired to go to sleep later and wake up later than older people , but parents need to enforce earlier bedtime for children so they can get up for school. Some kids have wake up earlier thank other kids to get to school., depending on where they live They have to go through school, some have extra curriculars, and after that kids have homework, eating dinner, getting ready for the next school day, dealing with kids stuff (which is a whole other thing,) and everything else that happens in between before their too-early bedtimes. Blue light from cell phones, TVs and tablets are keeping children up even longer, and affecting kids in ways that previous generations have not seen before. This results in children who are cranky, unprepared, irritable, and less willing to learn.
TEACHERS
Teachers have to be in the classroom before students do. After school, some teachers act as club sponsors or coaches , which requires that they be the last ones to leave these functions) If teachers have children of their own, theyre helping them with homework, cooking meals, bathing the young children and getting them into bed. A lack of sleep for teachers results in short tempered teachers with lackadasical sensibilities that rub off on the children. This creates a potential for hostile learning environments (just think of that one teacher you hated) that rub off on the children.
NURSES
Nurses, doctors and surgeons all have to go through very rigorous health residencies in medical school. Ive had friends go through nursing school and from an outsiders perspective it sounds like it should be illegal ,the amount of hours put into this without rest, but you’re dealing with human lives so the workload is expected to be more I guess… healthcare workers are expected to deliver under conditions of stress and urgency.
We are all aware that sleep deprivation can take a toll on motor functions (falling asleep behind the wheel is a good example). Would you trust a sleep-deprived surgeon to operate on you for six hours? The stunted judgement and listening skills earned from sleep deprivation causes a decline in the quality of care, diagnosis and prescribing of patients. This creates potential for medical malpractice, medical neglect and an increase of failed operations / lives lost.
COPS
Sleep deprivation contributes to an overdrive in your amygdala, a region of the brain responsible for emotions, fight or flight, arousal, and stress regulation. Friendly faces can seem more hostile than they actually are, due to an overstimulated amygdala. How much sleep do you think those in the police force (or US Military) are getting? Sleep deprivation becomes a tool that helps to breed the stereotypical archetype of defense personnel - always on edge, unable to keep it cool, and willing to use force. These tools can be used against the community, blaring loud police sirens late at night can keep the community awake , which over time will influence the residents of the community to be more angry, restless, and less willing to comply with the unnecessary demands of a tired police officer.
POLITICIANS
We should trust our politicians (local, state and national) to make incredibly complex ethical decisions on our behalf. I'ts no doubt that most politicians aren’t getting enough quality sleep at night. How would our governments be operated if everyone got a regulated amount of sleep? We will probably never now this., so I explore you to imagine what that would look and feel like. Our sleep deprived politicians sit in large rooms everyday and make decisions that are fed to them by corporations that don’t general public into consideration. When you consider sleep deprivation's affect on our amygdala, it makes more sense that these politicians would endorse a defense model when it comes to managing our nation, with laws that restrict the freedom of others with things like over militarization, over surveillance, and the introduction of bills that limite the freedoms of women and minorities.
US
The affect of sleep deprivation on our total health is hard to pinpoint when there are so many variables to general wellness. all of the variables have to be taken into account to determine what someone's problem is. Sleep deprivation can be a cause of something or an effect of something else. The combination of unhealthy variables in our lives (physical health, social health, economic health, spiritual health) attributes to the lack of sleep that we experience. A sleepless culture that’s been engrained in us combined with a lack of universal health care, the variety of unhealthy foods which are most accessible and affordable, and the sleep deterrents associated with a corporate work schedule and the inception of technology as a whole within the last 40 years creates unhealthy cycles that affect all of the variables in our lives. We don’t often think of sleep as the culprit to a lot of our problems. To me, sleeping (more so prioritizing it) is a radical practice in a time where you're always expected to be available, because it is not uncommon for people to get called into work early, or on days off,. It is not uncommon to be on the phone until 3 in the morning with someone else, or scrolling on your lonesome, and it is not uncommon to fall asleep during class, or at work, or in the car. And when you get caught doing these things or exhibiting signs of drowsiness, people seem to take offense, rather than giving you the opportunity to sleep and rectify the issue, which keeps the sleepy cycle in motion.
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.𝒟𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
NREM-1 – TRANSITIONAL PHASE
Our sleep gets deeper and deeper as we progress from stages 1 to 3. It starts as soon as you lay your head down, with NREM-1 (stage 1 sleep). Lasting from 5 to 10 minutes, this would be a typical cat nap. Your brain is prepping you to achieve deeper sleep. During this phase, your brain is releasing theta waves – the same brain waves associated with relaxing meditation, prayer and internal focus. These brain waves are slow and steady, unlike the brain waves created when youre awake or in REM sleep. Your eyes move slowly, and youll soon be entering NREM-2 sleep, stage 2. NREM-1 is referred to as a relaxed wakefulness. If someone were to wake you up during this time, youll likely explain to them that you weren’t asleep. Microsleeps may happen in this stage of sleep, so be careful behind the wheel. Those who have trouble falling asleep likely lay in bed, stuck in this stage of
NREM-2 – 50% OF YOUR TOTAL SLEEP
This stage of sleep picks up after NREM-1 sleep, and can last from 20-30 minutes per sleep cycle. This stage of sleep equates to a typical power nap. We start seeing the restorative effects of the brain take place in this stage; during stage 2 sleep, your brain is releasing K-complexes and sleep spindles. Sleep spindles help to keep you asleep by blocking the perception of external stimuli that can potentially wake you up. They’re also a key in our memory – the more sleep spindles you generate, the more you can process what information you temporarily stored during the day. Sleep spindles help to trash what doesn’t need to be remembered, and move the rest to a permanent memory storage in the frontal lobe. Imagine the sleep spindles emptying out your pockets, throwing away the receipts and gum wrappers, and then organizing the rest neatly in your backpack. Studies show that a nap after class or after studying will greatly boost your capacity to retain the information you learned. This is how the skills we practice every day become solidified. Practice makes perfect, but not without sleeping afterwards.
During this stage of sleep, your body temperature will begin to decrease and your heart rate will also decrease. Your eyes will become still. Your brain waves will slow down and begin to display the trademark K-complexes and sleep spindles associated with NREM-2 sleep that helps in memory consolidation
NREM-3 – DEEP AND RESTORATIVE SLEEP
This is the deepest stage of sleeping. With NREM-3, theta waves are replaced with delta brain waves. These are long and slow waves that can reach far across different areas of the brain. This stage of sleep can last up to an hour per cycle – time your naps wisely, because waking up during this stage of sleep will leave you groggy and disoriented, the length and depth of this sleep depends on a few factors – time spent awake, visual stimuli and age, as well as drug use. it is less likely for external stimuli to wake you at this stage. the body uses this time as an advantage to help boost your immune system and repair tissues and injuries - you may feel like you had a very deep sleep after a long bout of physical activity, and its becuase your body is processing the workout and rebuilding accordingly.
During this stage of sleep, some are susceptible to sleepwalking and night terrors.
REM – DREAM SLEEP
REM sleep is interesting in that it lasts longer the more we sleep. Sleep persists in a series of cycles that are about an hour and a half each – every cycle sees more REM sleep and less NREM as time passes. Aim for 8 hours always, because up to most of your REM sleep you get each night exists in the second half of the night.
During REM sleep, the deep restorative brain waves of Stage 3 sleep are replaced with super-active alpha and beta waves that seemingly resemble the brain waves we create when we are awake. during this time, the brain is allowing us to see, which is how we experience our dreams, but our motor functions are cut off, so we don’t act on our dreams (paralysis). This experience of feeling sight and motion in our dreams can be a preflight to being awake and could explain why we wake up from dreams. Contrary to belief, this stage of sleep is pretty light in comparison to stage 3 - it is easier to wake someone from a dream than it is when they’re experiencing deeper NREM-3 sleep.
Children 0-2 years old spend half of their sleep in REM stage, a testament to its importance- after 2 years, this drops to about 25% of the time in everyone else. What happens to the body during this time?
-increased body temperature
Increased heart rate and blood pressure
Increased metabolism
Increased sexual arousal
These functions seem to prepare us for being awake.
During REM sleep, your brain is making very complex connections between what you saw that day and what happened in the context of your life. Many creatives are indebted to their dreams, but these dreams can be easily blocked with alcohol consumption. REM sleep is a concentrated powerhouse of mental functions, and seminal one being emotional intelligence for humans.
✩‧₊˚⊹💤✩‧₊˚⊹💤✩‧₊˚⊹💤✩‧₊˚⊹💤
I consider all of the times that I was really tired or sleep deprived, and how crazy my life felt in those moments. On edge ,cold shakes, rushing headaches. All of the junk food, coffee and energy drinks. Fun fact - Red Bull is valued at over 18 billion dollars, and is the most popular energy drink in the entire workd.
My Mattress
The mattress arrived at the bottom floor of my apartment building, flattened and rolled in a very dense and heavy cardboard box. the mattress is described as a “medium firm hybrid pillowtop mattress”. it has pocket springs like a traditional mattress, a layer of gel memory foam, and a plush pillow-top finish, and I love it so much, and it is a pleasure to lay in bed every night and sometimes during the day. it is a pleasure to have something that supports me, supports my wellbeing, and doesn’t care about how i’m feeling. I could be tired or active or upset or sad, and it will always just be a mattress,. I will sometimes have to overlook the mattress getting too hot, but where i live, this is only a problem for a short period of time in the summer. the mattress is exactly my height, and wide enough for one wild sleeper or a gently nestled couple, and definitely better than most mattresses i have had in the past.
The mattress is fitted inside of the Ikea SLATTUM bed frame in color gray. It was difficult to install on my own but I didn’t have anyone that could help me at the time, and I definitely remember making some mistakes when I was putting it together. For a long time, I had an issue with the wooden SLATTUMS falling out from underneath - the mattress would essentially fall out and sink deeper into the frame. I had to eventually remove the mattress and use paper keys to ensure that the wooden slats to not move under shifting weight of the mattress. Ever since I have done that, I've had no problems or complaints - but i doubt i would take the frame with me if i were to move somewhere else in the future. I would prefer a full-metal frame that is higher off the ground.
I use a fitted sheet, a flat sheet, and some green and white pillowcases. I have a big duvet with a green duvet cover. . I find that it always makes me feel hot, which is nice for the cooler months, but I sleep on top of it during the summer. The duvet cover has to be tied to the duvet on all corners. It bothers me to constantly untie the duvet from the cover to wash it and tie it up again after it has been cleaned. one of the buttons is missing. I would like to upgrade to 100% linen sheets in the future.
I have four pillows - two are bamboo pillows (each in a white pillowcase), one is a firm poly-fill pillow, one is 100% down fill. Both of those are in matching green pillowcases.
During the summertime, I sleep with the AC on 74 degrees, but I prefer to sleep with the window open. whenever possible I try to wear the sleeping eye mask that my sister gave me for Christmas. Sometimes I wear a bonnet or a headscarf to bed to protect my hair, and when i have both on, it feels like i’m putting on a sleeping helmet. i sleep on my side, usually facing the wall, but i’ve been trying to fall asleep on my back, i hear its better for you. I tend to roll back and forth a lot.
I dont think i ever witnessed my parents, or anyone in my immediate family for that matter, get a new mattress. I feel like when I lived with my parents, I had the same mattress forever. I remember it being a thin, springy mattress with a forest green X floral pattern to it. Nowadays i sleep on my aforementioned mattress, and I dread the day when i will have to get rid of it because its definitely better then what i used to sleep on. Maybe getting rid of your mattress just wasn’t a thing that crossed the minds of my parents, I would assume its because they have built a strong relationship with the one they already have.
Every time I leave the house, which i try to do at least once a day even if for a short while, i feel like i see a mattress on the side of the street. Sometimes the mattress is with a bunch of other home furnishings, indicating that someone moved out, but more often than not, its just there with regular garbage, indicating that the owner is just getting rid of it. When i see these mattresses on the street, I think of all the things that can go wrong with mine. It can get damaged if my room experiences heavy flooding. It can somehow get ripped open, exposing its coily insides. It can get soiled after years and years of overuse, and having others try it out for themselves. Even worse, It can get bedbugs (my honest biggest fear when it comes to living in such a densely populated area), in which case i have bigger fish to fry than the mattress. i think that when you live with family as a child or in a small town you dont see as many mattresses on the street or in dumpsters, but the vast majority of people with homes have some kind of mattress or cushion that they sleep on, so it makes sense that you would have to eventually upgrade it and get a new one. in a densely packed city, you just see more of them getting thrown out. i remember seeing a mattress folded up under an overpass outside of the club one time. and i was like... how did you get all the way over here?
The mattresses that I see on the street seem to tell their own stories, reflecting the intricate lives of their previous owners. Some of these mattresses seem to have dignity - standing up tall on its long edge, wrapped multiple times over in some kind of plastic casing, waiting plainly to be taken to the dump. Other mattresses absolutely did need to get thrown out… heavily soiled and yellowed, physically DRAGGED to the sidewalks, unprotected from the dirt, rain, elements of the streets they wait upon. Some lay flat, some stand tall, but most of them seem to lean over onto something - the guardrails, the tree on the sidewalk, the surrounding lot of garbage they can often be seen next to. A look past all of the different conditions and posturings of these mattresses reveals to me stories of the previous owners, tales of the mattress itself. The children’s mattress folded in half, lying discreetly facing the widely popular AVOCADO mattress across the street. Some wield special branding, some wield purple accents, others seem to look like they’re brand spanking new, i wonder what happened to them but I probably shouldn’t hunt down the previous owners and ask them. Every day is another mattress out on the street, envious of the carefully packaged bed frames that are “FREE” right beside them, and grateful not too be the extremely tattered mattress toppers that they were once friends with.
ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁ᶻ 𝘇
Why Im Not Asleep // Things I Love About Nighttime
i love to drink coffee at 8pm. i love to look at the light up marquee across the street. i love to open my window and hear laughing children, revving engines, police sirens, and drunken gossip. i love to go outside. i love to dance. i love to figure out what to wear. i love to think about who will be there. i love to get cash at the ATM. i love the pounding beats of electronic music. i love to order drinks. i love to decline drugs. i love to go to the bathroom. i love to take pictures in the mirrors and stalls. i love to vomit in the toilet quietly. i love to be in the restaurant at 3AM. i love to order chicken fingers and Pepsi. i love to confess everything to my friends. i love to confess everything to strangers. i love to confess everything to the cashier. i love to ask questions about why im here. i love to go for long walks. i love to see the streets empty. i love to hear the quiet of the night. i love to sing to my favorite songs. i love to cry in bed. i love to go for a drive. i love to love others. i love to sit and spectate. i love to scroll on my phone. i love to watch cartoons in my underwear. I love to type on my computer.
✨⭐ 𝕲̟̹𝖔̧̹𝖔̧̟𝖉̟̟ ̟͓𝕹̨͓𝖎̨̜𝖌̜̹𝖍̹̟𝖙̟ 🌙⭐
NOTABLE SLEEP RELATED INCIDENTS
A lack of sleep can literally be deadly. A rare form of insomnia, in which the patient cannot fall asleep AT ALL, will kill within six months to a year - but what about people without this insomnia? What about people who just go to sleep late and wake up early? These few hours of missed sleep will add up overtime, and you cannot retrieve them once they're gone.
CAR CRASHES
Sadly, car crashes due to sleep deprivation are not uncommon - about one death every hour in the US. These can happen in two ways. The lesser common car crash will come from straight up falling asleep behind the wheel. The more common, cause is from what is called a microsleep. The brain will have a short lapse in function. Have you ever been riding passenger on a road trip and felt yourself drifting off before coming back to? Students face this in class as well, sometimes they don't even realize it is happening it. When behind the wheel, a single microsleep has the potential to kill you (and others) more than drunk driving -I say this because drunk driving delivers a delayed response time, but a microsleep delivers no active response at all. You won't even be able to help yourself, and it is worth noting that drunk and sleepless driving often happen together if you are one to leave the club at 3AM. This is why it is always best to pull over if you feel yourself getting too tired behind the wheel.
3 MILE ISLAND
Pennsylvania, 1979 - a nuclear generating station sees a malfunction of nuclear reactor #2 resulting in a subsequent radiation leak. This was the worst nuclear power related incident in United States history – Luckily, there are no deaths.
Exxon Valdez
March 1989, Alaska - Known as one of the most environmentally disastrous oil spills of all time, 10.8 million gallons of oil are released into the Prince William sound. Over 2 billion dollars in damages and cleanup. In the hours leading up to the crash, one of the alleged third men had one cat nap in the 16 hours leading to the crash. The vessel moved out of its lane to avoid an iceberg, and did not move back into its lane.
THE CHALLENGER SHUTTLE EXPLOSION
Florida, 1986 - space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after takeoff. All seven passengers died, either during the explosion or from the fall from air to ocean. It is widely reported that the tight schedule of the launch led to many accumulated oversights, and some managers only slept for a couple of hours the night before the launch.
Chernobyl
An accident involving reactor #4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the northern Ukrainian USSR. April 1986. 9 days of radioactive contamination. Over 100,000 people were evacuated from an exclusion radius of about 20 miles. This accident is known as the worst nuclear accident in recorded history. Water was contaminated and so were fish. Animals and plants in the surrounding area died or were evacuated out. Much of the animal offspring were born with deformities. 237 people suffered radiation sickness after the fact; 31 died, two from the effects of the blast and 29 firemen from acute radiation. These numbers are debated because of the time radiation takes to affect a group of people. The ruins of Chernobyl will be radioactive for thousands of years. It's been concluded that the fatigue of 13 hours shifts led to the oversights that caused this eruption (a flawed reactor design).
Sleep Hygeine
Medical professoinals call it sleep hygience, but i call it building your relationship with sleep, because it really is a relationship that you have with yourself.
Work on yourself // Sleep can affect all parts of your life, but all parts of your life can affect your sleep in return - they bounce back and forth off of each other depending on which way the sleep is going. Sleep is required to heal the body. Physical injury diminishes with proper sleep, but no sleep will delay healing or make the injury worse. A healthy diet and healthy cravings are enabled by proper sleep, but a lack of sleep induces cravings for sugar and calorie dense foods that in-turn affect your sleep in a negative fashion. Proper sleep helps to quell feelings of stress, anger, jealousy and worry. However, a lack of sleep will make these stressors much worse, and it is always going to be easier to sleep with a clear mind than one filled with jealousy, worry and fear. This is to say that you should review the other aspects of your life first, and make whatever changes you think you need to make to see if this improves your relationship with sleep as a result. some factors of life cannot be controlled, but many can be.
Drinks // Drinking alcohol is one of the biggest inhibitors of REM sleep. Do with that what you want, and keep in mind that youre usually drinking alcohol when its late and youre already sleep deprived. Caffeine is one of the most widely used substances in the world. it metabolizes through the liver enxyme Cytochrome P450 1A2 with a half life of 5-6 hours. Caffeine attaches to the same receptors as adenosine, a neurotransmitter that is responsible to slowing neuron activity and creating feelings of drowsiness referred to as "sleep pressure". when the caffeine wears off, the accumulation of adenosine hits at the same time, causing what we refer to as "crashing".
Temperature // the body, like the earth, needs to cool down at night. every body is different, but it is said to keep your temperatures between 65-68. Im cool with 72-74, but regardless, youre going to have trouble sleeping if you're too hot. Warm showers relax the body and slightly raise your body temperature, which allows it to cool down as youre drifting off to sleep. cool showers can lower your body temperature, but they can also raise levels of cortisol and are more sensationally shocking than warm showers are.
Light // Blue light has the shortest wavelength of any color, meaning that our eyes have to strain the most. Office developmnts are taking this into consideration when choosing lighting designs that keep employees awake and working by selecting cooler color temperatures. blue light is found in all of our screens as well, and it is responsible for blocking the production of melatonin. the sky is blue, and looking at artificial blue light prevents the pineal gland from recognizing that it is not daytime anymore. reducing brightness or opting for blue-blocking filters can help with this, but from my window, i see lights in the apartments on the other side of the street as well as lights advertising the array of businesses on the ground floor across the street - a Honduras restaurant, a smoke shop, and a car service. Literally just get a satin or silk sleeping mask and actually use it. It blocks all the light so it doesnt matter if there's light creeping into your window or if you fall asleep with the light on, and the more you use it, the more comfortable it will be to use, and the more confortable you will be with using it.
Fitness // one upon a time we built pyramids but now some of us work in office settings and sit in a chair all day. The brain works out every day, but wearing out the body helps in giving your muscles and bones a reason to go to sleep too, and youll find out that you feel more rested if you get your steps in everyday. I go for long walks and i like to ride on my inline skates. every fall i take on my skates is a reason to go to bed and allow myself to heal.
Desire // To go to sleep you have to relinquish some feelings of control, you have to submit to the bed and let it help you because thats why you have the bed in the first place. take care of it and it will take care of you. To go to sleep you have to want to go to sleep in the first place, and you have to show up for bed every day, preferably around the same time because its about building trust. getting ready for bed helps as well, so when you actually lay down, all of the mental gymnastics are over. Opt for mood lighting when it gets late, turn the brightness on my screens down, and listen to relaxing music. Try to think about how you want your mornings to be, and incorporate that into a bedtime routine. for example, i want to wake up slowly with a clear mind, i want to go to bed slowly with a clear mind. i want to feel grateful for finishing a long day and i want to feel grateful for opening my eyes to a new day. i bring these desires to bed and work on fulfilling them, and the more i do that, the better the sleep gets.