Warm Up: How has loss of sleep affected you as a student? Are there any strategies you can use to increase your performance?

Standards

IVD-1.1 Define states of consciousness

IVD-1.2 Describe levels of consciousness

IVD-2.1 Describe the sleep cycle.

IVD-2.2 Compare theories that explain why we sleep.

IVD-2.3 Assess types of sleep disorders.

Objective

Students will be able to assess their current state and diagnosis whether they need to change their sleeping patterns to maximize performance.

What is consciousness?◦ Our awareness of the environment and ourselves within said

environment◦ Apart of cognitive neuroscience

Study of the brain and its association with mental processes Dual processing and the two track mind

◦ Taking in information on a conscious and subconscious level simultaneously Unconscious parallel processing

doing a task with does not actively need your brain in order to free you brain to do other activities

Examples? Serial conscious processing

Requiring your active attention in order to fulfill the task at hand Example: Pat your head and rub your stomach simultaneously

Consciousness

Selective attention◦ The ability of focus on a specific stimulus and ignore

other stimuli◦ Cocktail party effect – in a crowded noisy room, you can

isolate the person’s voice who you are talking to◦ Texting and driving is selective attention – can (most

likely will) lead to car crashes Selective inattention

◦ When pay attention to a specific task, we may sometimes miss out on a small detail of information

◦ Intentional blindness Failing to see visible objects when our attention is elsewhere

◦ Change blindness Failing to notice change in the environment

Selective Attention something most high school students do not have.

Sleep is a periodic loss of consciousness ◦ Different than unconsciousness which results from a coma,

hibernation or anesthesia Sleep is based on our 24 hour biological clock where we

sleep for 90 minute cycles◦ Circadian rhythm

The human body’s biological clock Body temperature varies throughout the day (high in the morning,

lowest at night) Our minds are sharpest when the cycle is at its peak

Does this mean the start of school should be set back a couple of hours and leave later?

◦ With light, there is a suppression of the pineal gland to produce melatonin which makes you sleepy

Due to the invention of the light bulb, our circadian rhythm is now closer to a 25 hour cycle

Sleep and Dreams

Study finds later school start times improve sleep and daytime functioning in adolescents

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Julie Boergers, Ph.D., a psychologist and sleep expert from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center, recently led a study linking later school start times to improved sleep and mood in teens. The article, titled "Later School Start Time is Associated with Improved Sleep and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents," appears in the current issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

"Sleep deprivation is epidemic among adolescents, with potentially serious impacts on mental and physical health, safety and learning. Early high school start times contribute to this problem," said Boergers. "Most teenagers undergo a biological shift to a later sleep-wake cycle, which can make early school start times particularly challenging. In this study, we looked at whether a relatively modest, temporary delay in school start time would change students' sleep patterns, sleepiness, mood and caffeine use."

Boergers' team administered the School Sleep Habits Survey to boarding students attending an independent high school both before and after their school start time was experimentally delayed from 8 to 8:25 a.m. during the winter term.

The delay in school start time was associated with a significant (29 minute) increase in sleep duration on school nights, with the percentage of students receiving eight or more hours of sleep on a school night jumping from 18 to 44 percent. The research found that younger students and those sleeping less at the start of the study were most likely to benefit from the schedule change. And once the earlier start time was reinstituted during the spring term, teens reverted back to their original sleep levels.

Daytime sleepiness, depressed mood and caffeine use were all significantly reduced after the delay in school start time. The later school start time had no effect on the number of hours students spent doing homework, playing sports or engaging in extracurricular activities.

Boergers, who is also co-director of the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic at Hasbro Children's Hospital, said that these findings have important implications for public policy. "The results of this study add to a growing body of research demonstrating important health benefits of later school start times for adolescents," she said. "If we more closely align school schedules with adolescents' circadian rhythms and sleep needs, we will have students who are more alert, happier, better prepared to learn, and aren't dependent on caffeine and energy drinks just to stay awake in class."

Do you believe a later start time in school would benefit your ability to pay attention? Explain by citing specific examples.

Question

5 stages within the 90 minute cycle REM (rapid eye movement) sleep

◦ The stage where dreams occur, muscles relaxed, but other body systems are active

Stage 1◦ Slowed rate of breathing, irregular brain wave activity (alpha waves) lasting 5-

10 minutes, muscles relax with occasional twitching Stage 2

◦ Decrease in body temperature with burst of brain activity lasting for approximately 20 minutes, this marks the beginning of sleep.

Stage 3◦ Transition between light and deep sleep. Slowed brain waves begin to appear.

This is approximately 10-15 minutes Stage 4

◦ Deepest sleep stage where delta waves are the majority of brain activity. This stage is also known as delta sleep. Between stage 3 and 4, they last around 30 minutes combined

Stage 5◦ REM sleep

Stages of Sleep

Brain Waves and Sleep Stages

Stage 5 of the sleep cycle. Similar to stage 1 in that you are more alert

than stages 3 and 4 The brainstem stops the messages from

being sent to your muscles but the cortex experiences these sensations

Paradoxical sleep – inside awake, outside calm

REM and stage 2 get longer as stage 4 gets shorter as the night goes on

REM Sleep

Less energy Increases the hunger hormone and it makes

fat rather than burning it off through simple sugar

Can suppress immune responses to illnesses

You can be more susceptible to irritability, slowed performance, impaired creativity, concentration and communication as well as slowed reaction time

If we don’t get enough sleep, what happens?

Sleep protects◦ Protected our ancestors from harm◦ We sleep because our environment tells us to

Sleep helps us regenerate◦ Restores and repairs brain tissue◦ During the day, our neurons are used and attacked, sleep helps us

regenerate those neurons Sleep is for making memories

◦ To recapitulate the day’s memories and store them into long term memory

Sleep feeds creative thinking◦ Dreams help us think of creative ways to attack a certain task.◦ Find connections we may not have thought of when cognitively awake

Sleep plays a role in the growth process◦ Pituitary gland releases the growth hormone during sleep

Sleep Theories

Sleep Apnea◦ A sleep disorder where the individual stops breathing during sleep and

wakes up due to this stoppage in respiration Narcolepsy

◦ The individual cannot control when they fall into REM sleep and these “attacks” can happen at any time.

Insomnia◦ The constant problem of not being able to sleep (either falling asleep or

staying asleep) Night Terrors

◦ High arousal through terrorizing thoughts and feelings during the 4th stage of sleep and these terrors are not usually remembered

Sleepwalking/sleeptalking◦ Occurs usually in stage 2 or later. ◦ Sleep walkers return to bed themselves unbenouced that they sleepwalk◦ The more tired a person is, the more likely they will sleepwalk or talk if

they have done the action in the past.

Sleep disorders

Dreams are images, emotions, and thoughts which occur during sleep.◦ Can be hallucinatory, not make much sense◦ Usually forgotten within the first few seconds of waking up

Satisfy our own wishes◦ Your unconscious wishes are the key to understanding your inner conflict. “What

you do you want most” comes out in your dreams. File away memories

◦ Help sift through your daily activities, but must have undisturbed REM sleep in order for this to happen.

Develop and preserve neural pathways◦ Help develop the neural pathways in infants because of the length they sleep

and how much REM sleep they achieve. To make sense of neural static

◦ When you take in information through your unconscious, your dreams try to make sense of everything (activation synthesis theory)

Reflect cognitive development◦ Dream reflect their cognitive development, their knowledge and their

understanding

Dreams and Why do we dream?

A social interaction in which the hypnotist suggest to the subject certain feelings, thought or behaviors which will occur immediately.

Can help retrieve information which may be blocked

Can be used for “bad” and harmful acts By using posthypnotic suggestions, it has

helped alleviate headaches, asthma, and other disorders.◦ An action to be carried out after the subject is no

longer hypnotized

What is hypnosis?