Sleep

Have you ever wondered why you sleep? We spend 30% of our lives sleeping, so it must be something very important for us. It is proven that we need it. Without it, our performance drops significantly in nearly every activity. Its absence brings in our minds only one thought, the time that we will go to bed again.

Although we accept that we need to slumber, we don’t know yet why we need it. This altered state of consciousness attracted the attention of scientists. The first scientists that researched this state, and also discovered the REM condition, were Nathaniel Kleitman and William Charles Dement. They are called the fathers of sleep research.

Dement describes sleep and alertness as the results of an endless war between two armies within our heads. Each party is a group of hormones, neurons and biochemical substances with different purpose. The one party aims at keeping us awake while the other party aims at the opposite. The first one is called circadian excitation system or process C and the second one is the sleep homeostasis or process S.

This battle between these two armies takes place every day. The paradox in this war is that if an army controls the battlefield, it is certain that this army will lose finally the battle. The more we stay awake the greater the need for bedtime. It is definite that we will fall asleep. The same applies to the reverse.

So what happens inside our heads in the afternoon when we feel the need for a nap? The war between these two impetuses reaches a climax. This state of mind absorbs too much energy. During this state of afternoon drowsiness, the power of the conflicting armies is equal. It is believed by some scientists that this is the reason why we need a midday nap. Anyway, even if this is not the actual reason for the afternoon drowsiness, our brain does not function well during this time window.

Benefits

Despite the fact that when we have a quality slumber we feel well rested, having a lie-down has numerous benefits for our mental abilities. Also it is a very creative state of mind that you can get inspiration and perceive new ideas. It is known that the famous Russian Dmitri Mendeleyev had the idea of the periodic table of the elements while he was dreaming. There are many examples of such inspirations during this mysterious state.

Many experiments showed that slumbering normally can significantly improve the learning process. One of these experiments was the following. The researchers gave students a series of mathematical problems. These problems could be solved in two ways, an easy one and a difficult one. The students were taught only the difficult way.

The purpose of this experiment was to answer the question, if slumbering could increase the students' intuition in finding the better solution to the mathematical problems. The answer was affirmative in the end as the performance of the students who had slept normally, for 8 hours, before the exam was three times as good as the performance of the students who didn’t fall asleep. This experiment was repeated many times and showed always the same result. The group that slept had a performance ratio 3:1 to the group that didn’t slumber at all.

So, slumber is vital for our learning abilities and if we want to expand further our mind skills we should keep our brain healthy. If we don’t, then the sleep debt increases. This causes mental or physical fatigue and low performance. Let’s see what happens when we insist staying awake.

Loss of Sleep (LOS)

We feel now that LOS has negative effects on our learning abilities. As we maintain this condition, the sleep debt is getting bigger. This situation sometimes can be fatal, especially if the nature of our work is dangerous, like operating heavy machinery in a factory.

Loss of sleep and its effects also attracted the interest of scientists. There have been many experiments which have shown that if someone reduces the slumbering time to less than 6 hours per night then in just five days his cognitive performance will be equal to someone’s that has been deprived of sleep for 2 days. The drop in his performance can be 60%.

Apart from the performance drop, LOS is connected also to other negative side effects. Some of them are listed below:

• Inability to use fully the nutritious components of the food. This process can be reduced up to 30%.

• Insulin production is decreased while in the same time the person’s need for insulin increases. If this continues then the aging process accelerates.

• Thinking, attention, memory, psychic mood, calculating skills, reasoning and other similar characteristics are also reduced.

• Movement ability is reduced.

So, it is certain that staying awake for a long time is closely related to unhealthy conditions. We should keep this in mind if we want to move forward in our mind expansion quest.

And how slumber correlates with our mind capabilities? Some research in mice showed that a rat, which found the correct path in a labyrinth, when it took a nap, its brain replayed the experience thousands of times. This rat had electrodes in its brain which recorded the electrical activity of its neurons. The brain patterns that were recorded when it learned the correct pathway were the same as the patterns that were recorded when the mouse was in a low brainwave (delta) state.

So, it seems that the brain needs slumber in order to establish and organize the new knowledge it gets during the day. Maybe it is another learning function that completes the learning process. Return from Sleep to Home