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

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Something for you all to think about ;)

People can put strange things in strange places


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Placement

Helloo, I know its been a while but I'm back on placement, meaning break times a spent staring at the walls, but this time round I've got something to keep me blogging every day, as I've only brought:
4 tins of beans
3 75g tubs of tuna mayo
4 tins of tuna steak
1 tin of thai green chicken curry
2 microwave bags of rice
3 packs of supernoodles
A half kilo bag of wholegrain pasta
And a carton of long life milk
And that's godda last me a month (when I next get money)
I also have about £1.55 to my name, which I plan to spend on something stodgy

Should be a fun 4 weeks :P will keep you all updated on what I make and my opinions of it :P

Only been back at placement an hour and feel like I'm back into it, done 3 patients today so far and I've just been sent for "coffee break" seen as I have no coffee, I'm just sat staring at the walls :P

I think its gonna be the free time that kills me, I brought nothing to do but a book on alcohol, and a book on pain.

Well, break times over, back to the grind stone and what not,

Liam

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Electronic tabs?

So I was sat about yesterday and someone I knew came in saying "I've got these new electric cigarettes wanna give them a try?" And thinking "well I've smoked before, why not"

And they're vile, they're just nicotine, but my biggest issue with them is they're legal to smoke indoors,

In the two hours I was with this person they had at least 20-30 drags on the electronic cigarette, and that's a lot.

The legality of these things means that smokers don't have to go outside to get their fix of nicotine, so they can just have a puff whenever they want, I see them as a useful tool for people who just want to be that bit healthier but don't want to stop smoking.

They're a very expensive up and front lump sum (like 60 quid for 20) but 20 should last up to a month or something.

So let's do some maths:

Assuming the average smoker smokes 20 a day, at about a fiver a packet that's 35 pound a week, over a month that's 140 quid spent on fags, so buying these at 60 quid saves the smoker 80 quid a month in total, not bad so far. Multiply that out over a year gives a saving of 960 quid a year, that'll pay for a decent holiday each year without having the stress of giving up smoking.

Also, they're a pure nicotine delivery system, its just nicotine, none of the bad chemicals you get in a cigarette (such as cyanide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde (which is what they use to pickle dead bodies)) so settle the craving without the large health risks (having said that I'm not sure of the science behind nicotine in relation to health)

Long story short these things are good, but only if used by intelligent people, smoke them as you would a fag, 8-10 drags then you're done, next one a few hours later.

Liam

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Bank holidays

Have you ever thought about what a bank holiday is?
Its a day us, the general population, don't have access to the banks and they say that they're closed, but they cant be closed really, if someone with trillions of pounds in the bank rings up, and says "hey, erm, I'd like to transfer 20 billion from x account to y account they're not gonna say "oh, no sorry you can't do that we're closed!" Think of the money the banks can make from that transaction "oh yeah there's a 5 million transfer fee, oh yes sir that's 1/10th of the price because its bank holiday and there's not many transactions going through, the lines are clearer" 5 million or 50 million is nothing to these people, okay, maybe that's an over shoot but the banks could make a mint from today.

And why don't we notice? Because we get a day off, we get to sit about watching TV or maybe going out side, they can't be productive days because everythings shut, unless you need to do some repairs or something. So we get this day to make our houses better, or to relax and do nothing.

And today is the second consecutive bank holiday in 2 days (monday and today are bank holidays in england because of the queens jubilee)
So the whole countries watching the jubilee, and a lot of the world are too because most of the world bums the royal family.
If you look into the news today an al quieda (sp?) Deputy was aimed upon by a drone, the stock market has fallen 17 points, and the G3 summit is putting together an emergency bill on the future running of the world, it'll all be on the news but briefly.

Its amazing what's really going on in the world when you look past what's entertaining the simple masses, its a shame that the royal family have been used as smoke and mirrors for all these big events.


Got an awful lot of spare time on my hands at the moment ;)

LIAM

Out!
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