Counting Sheep? or Too Much Sleep?
Sleep is central to the natural repair and restoration process that maintains each part of our mind and body. Neurofeedback helps the Central Nervous System (CNS) to release old and unhelpful patterns. This allows sleep to renormalize. When sleep renormalizes, your memory will work better, energy increases, and "brain fog" decreases. You will have better attention, focus, and concentration. You will be less anxious about life and you will feel better about yourself.
What can Neurofeedback do for sleep?
Neurofeedback (Biofeedback EEG) returns irregular sleep patterns to normal , improving both sleep quality and sleep efficency. Getting a good night's sleep on a regular basis provides many benefits. Read on as to why we need sleep.
Functions of Sleep
- Learning, declarative/factual memory, and emotional processing happen during REM sleep (which happens at the end of each sleep cycle).
- Maintain cognitive vigilance – the ability to notice and gather new information.
- Maintain the ability to learn – to integrate new information into the old.
- Immune system restoration and surveillance. This happens during the earlier parts of each sleep cycle.
- Body growth and maintenance. Your metabolic (energy system) and your somatic (physical body parts) are repaired and developed during the nonREM parts of your sleep cycles.
- Sleep is primarily a physiologic process that restores both somatic (overall body) and neuronal (nerves, brain) integrity. You are essentially getting a “tune-up and minor overhaul” when you get your required number of sleep cycles.
- As sleepiness rises, awareness of poor performance declines. There is a decrease in prefrontal cortex activity, which is where our executive functions occur. These include:
- Working memory
- Inhibiting responses to distracting stimuli
- Connections with hippocampus to help create longer term memory
- Interactions with other parts of the brain to produce cognition (thinking)
- Attention
- Mood regulation
- Help understand social situations
- Strategic planning
- Seeing the big picture while noticing the details
- Being aware of one’s situation
Adult Sleep Requirement
Over 80% of adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep. About 10% need only 6 hours. A very few can do with less than 6 hours, while about 10% need 9-10 hours. Adequate sleep requires about four to five 90-minute sleep cycles each night.
Sleep Debt
Sleeping less than your required amount leads to “sleep debt.” This debt must be recovered or various cognitive and physiological compromises begin to occur.
The elderly frequently have a large sleep debt. In fact they need the same amount of sleep as younger adults, but the system controlling sleep becomes impaired and they don’t stay asleep long enough.
Teens and college students frequently have sleep debt similar to the elderly. Those with sleep apnea (failure to breath for short periods of sleeping time) also suffer from extensive sleep debt.
Too Much Sleep
It's possible to get too much sleep. It's also possible to sleep for many hours yet not feel refreshed. Too much time spent sleeping that is not followed by a regular wakeful period are indications that something is not right. The persistent sleepiness may be indicative of an undiagnosed illness. Feeling sleepy during various parts of the day, or not feeling refreshed on waking may indicate the presence of a sleep disorder. Something is preventing you from reaching the deepest levels of sleep.
Sleep and Memory
A Harvard Medical School Center for Sleep and Cognition study, published in the July 2006 issue of Current Biology, found that the quality and quantity of sleep a person gets has a direct effect on their memory skills. Researchers noted that "sleep had a benefit for the consolidation and strengthening of memory. It actively does so; it's not a passive process. The brain actively engages memories and leads them to be strengthened the next day, and it's a long-lasting benefit."
Sleep to Learn
It has long been understood that cognitive capacity can be improved by a good sleep regime. On the other hand, sleep deprivation can diminish learning, memory, and general cognition. REM sleep, the stage of sleep in which dreaming occurs and in which it is believed that true rest occurs, is believed to be to be particularly important.
Now, a September 2006 study by Matthew Tucker of The City University in New York and his colleagues has indicated that even a short nap can have similar benefits, particularly for factual learning.
Volunteers were asked to memorize pairs of words, and to trace images in a mirror. The subjects were tested immediately afterwards and also 6 hours later. The people who were allowed to nap for at least an hour before the second test scored 15 per cent better in the factual test (memorization) than the non-nappers,(but no better in the motor-based task). "Traditionally, time devoted to daytime napping has been considered counterproductive," the researchers say. It now seems sleep is "an important mechanism for memory formation". (Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, vol 86, p 241).
Problems with Sleep
Sleep can become disrupted and unproductive in many ways. The occasional interrupted sleep, say from a fire engine siren, an anxious night of anticipation, or even pulling an all-nighter, does not have lasting effects. Problems occur when the disruptions are repeated or chronic.
Routinely shortchanging your sleep will compromise your physical health, immune system, and brain functioning. Using caffeine, sugar, and other chemicals to help you stay awake night after night will make the situation worse.
People are often awake against their will. Such problems include the insomnias, chronic pain, restless leg syndrome, periodic limb movement, myoclonic twitches, acute injury, bereavement, stress, and certain psychological disorders, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Panic, apnea, and other breathing-related disorders will also interfere with sleep.
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