Back shifts and sleeping patterns

Supposed to be on back shift today, but unfortunately, I've trained my brain to wake up after the minimum number of hours sleep we need to function and process, which is what this post is about:

As kids we're always told we need 8 hours sleep a night to feel well rested and process all the information we learnt during the day (obviously vital for kids/students as we're always learning and taxing our brains (despite what some people seem to think))

However, to process information and to fully recover physically from the day prior the brain needs to reach a stage of sleep known as the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage, this is where the voluntary muscles (such as the muscles in your arms and legs) become paralysed, (thus meaning they're not being used so can repair without the risk of being damaged by movement (I'm sure many of you will know but to build on muscle you have to tear it and new muscle grows in the gaps, so if you keep moving constantly the gaps will keep getting bigger and never fully repair, hence REM sleep)

But how do we get into REM sleep?

Sleep is based in 2 and a half hour cycles of 5 stages, these stages must all be met for a good "well rested" nights sleep:

the first stage of sleep only lasts 5-10 minutes, and is always at the beginning of the sleep cycle, the brain is producing theta waves (won't go into brain waves here as I don't know them at all, but I plan to study them at some point) but if you awoke someone in these 5-10 they might think that they weren't really asleep as you're still consciously aware of your surroundings and still absorbing information.

Total time asleep so far, 10 minutes,

Stage 2 lasts for about 20 minutes and brain activity begins to spike in rhythmic patterns, these spikes in brain activity are known as sleep spindles, during this time body temperature begins to drop and heart rate slows

Total time asleep so far, 30 minutes

Stage 3 isn't really a stage, more of a transitional period between light sleep and deep sleep.

Stage 4 lasts approximately 30 minutes and is the first "deep sleep" stage in the cycle, during stage 4 sleep we will not dream but bodily functions still continue, bed wetting and sleep walking are most common towards the end of stage four sleep

Time asleep so far 1 hour

Stage 5 sleep is REM sleep, this is where most of our dreaming occurs, muscles become relaxed, respiration increases, voluntary muscles become paralysed, but this is when the brain does most of its work during the sleep cycle, Kramer and Rotor suggest the purpose of REM sleep is to "regulate and stabilise affect-related information" kramer and rotor also did a study on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sufferers which showed that their REM sleep cycles were regularly interrupted by the brain, thus keeping the memory of the trauma out of the long term memory, which shows that the REM cycle of sleep is used to process things from the short term memory and embed them in the long term memory, this can be linked to learning as all the information our minds get bombarded with on a day to day basis is not enough for the brain to sort whilst learning more stuff, so the information is stored until such a time that the REM stage is reached and then the information is stored in the long term memory, if REM sleep is not reach (I.e someone doesn't sleep for a few days) I (I haven't found anything to confirm or deny this) assume any information that didn't get stored in the long term memory during the day is lost.

The REM stage has no real time scale but can last up to an hour at a time.

Time asleep so far 2 hours,

So, providing that our brains went through the full cycle in order, the human brain would need only 2 hours sleep to feel refreshed, however, after stage 4 sleep, stage 2 and 3 are repeated before entering REM sleep meaning the time for a single sleep cycle is between 2 and a half hours and 3 hours depending on the transitional stage ( stage 3) length

So to feel fully rested we only need 3 hours sleep a night and we need to wake up in a light stage of sleep, however, I tend to get six, because I like sleep ;)

If you consider the 8 hours we're recommended, based on the concepts in this post, you would wake up around the middle/beginning of a rem sleep cycle, which is a deep sleep stage and awaking at these times is detrimental to the processing of the brain.

Doesn't take much to find these things out but yet people still follow governments guide lines on "8 hours sleep a night"

Liam

OUT!
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