Your brain is always emitting waves, even when you are sleeping
- alpha waves: relaxed but awake
- beta waves: active and awake
- delta waves: super slow, during deep sleep
Sleep Stages
1.theta waves, hypnagogic sensations (sense of falling or floating)
2. sleep spindles (burst of activity-helps you stay asleep if something might wake you up), K-complexes, sleep-talking etc
3--4. deepest stage, delta waves, sleep walking and night terrors
- hard to wake up--sound of their own name or crying baby may work
- sleep walking may be a back and forth of sleep/wake/sleep/wake
5. REM (rapid eye movement) sleep: eyes move beneath lids
- high activity in brain--beta waves show that you are dreaming
- aka paradoxical sleep: body is paralyzed so you don't act out your dreams
- always genital arousal, even if the dream is not sexual
- REM occurs at the end of the night, so if you cut sleep short, you miss out on dreams!
Sleep deprivation: sleep is a biological need, if you don't sleep, you die.
- we accumulate a sleep debt= hours of sleep you need that you missed in span of 2 weeks
Sleep Theories: why do we need sleep?
- sleep protects: sleeping at night helps us hide from predators
- sleep recuperates: restores and repairs brain tissue
- sleep helps memory: restores and rebuilds fading memories
- sleep allows growth: pituitary gland releases growth hormone
- sleep cleans: cerebrospinal flow increases, washes away harmful waste proteins
Sleep Disorders
- insomnia= recurring problems in falling or staying asleep
- night terrors= during stage 4, kids are aroused from sleep with intense fear, they can not remember the episode in the morning
- narcolepsy= uncontrollable urges to fall asleep- go instantly to REM sleep
- sleep apnea= temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings
- micro-wakes up to 400x per night caused by small episodes of suffocating
Dreams: occur during REM sleep- 8/10 dreams have negative emotional content (faliure dreams
- sexual dreams: 1/10 for men, 1/30 for women
- gender distribution: women dream of males and females equally, men dream of 65% males
- lucid dream: you become aware that you are dreaming and can take control of dream
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