Some quick facts, Dwight Shrute style:
FACT: People who report getting ~4 hours of sleep per night are twice as likely as the general population to die within six years.
(Sleeping too much can cause bad times as well - those who report sleeping for more than 10 per night are ALSO twice as likely to die within six years)
FACT: Dr. Dement estimates that 95-100% of Stanford undergrads don't get enough sleep.
FACT: The human body naturally heals wounds, rejuvenates its muscular and skeletal systems, and processes memories during sleep.
The moral of the story: sleep or die a horrible, zombie-like death.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Snoring
I'm really tempted to leave a tape recorder on overnight to find out if I snore a lot. After all, I don't want to wind up like this:
(Note that Snorlax is clearly obese, which is a significant risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea.)
While today's Sleep and Dreams lecture addressed the causes of snoring and the negate impact it can have, Dr. Dement never really addressed how snoring is treated. I've taken it upon myself to compose a top 5 list of ways to reduce your snoring problem:
5. Small adjustments to your sleep habits. Try sleeping on your side instead of your back, since this will allow your airway to expand more, as it no longer must fight directly against gravity. Also, WebMD.com recommends that you tilt the head of your bed upwards about four inches to reduce the strain of breathing in. While Snorlax's head seems slightly elevated, he is clearly still sleeping on his back and not his side. An easy change to make.
4. Lifestyle changes. Those who are obese, those who smoke, and those who drink large amounts of alcohol are all at greater risk for snoring (as well as obstructive sleep apnea in general). Snorlax needs to lose some weight, quit smoking, and lay off the booze. Perhaps lifestyle changes are the most important and most effective ways to address snoring, since they treat the root causes of snoring (obstructed pathways).
3. Anti-snoring devices. As you can probably imagine, there are plenty of sketchy websites out there offering ridiculous cure-all solutions to your snoring problem. Some of them, called mandibular advancement splints, move the tongue forward so it doesn't obstruct the airway. Another popular machine is the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, which pumps a steady stream of air through a mask to keep the airway open. While these devices have proven to be somewhat effective, they fail to treat the basic causes of snoring, and all they can do is mask the problem by treating the symptoms.
2. Surgery. This is usually the last step for severe snorers to take, since it is certainly the most intensive and most invasive. A treatment called uvulopalatopharyngoplasty involves widening the airway by removing tissue from the back of the throat (ironically, the name of the procedure is...a mouthful). While these procedures are usually successful, they also carry significant risks, as scarring can cause the airway to shrink even further after surgery. In the end, if you are seriously considering surgery, it is best to discuss your options with a qualified doctor and analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of each avenue.
1. Don't sleep. One of the two basic requirements for snoring to occur is that you must be asleep. Looks like I just beat the system. HAH.
So there you have it! You may be a Snorlax now, but by utilizing the new anti-snoring resources at your disposal, you don't have to be one forever.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoring#Treatment
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/snoring?page=2
http://snore-gonomics.com/
Disclaimer: I can't seriously advocate not sleeping as a cure for snoring. As everyone knows, life becomes increasingly miserable if you don't sleep, and performance on everything from academics to athletics suffers when your sleep debt is too high. DROWSINESS IS RED ALERT!
(Note that Snorlax is clearly obese, which is a significant risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea.)
While today's Sleep and Dreams lecture addressed the causes of snoring and the negate impact it can have, Dr. Dement never really addressed how snoring is treated. I've taken it upon myself to compose a top 5 list of ways to reduce your snoring problem:
5. Small adjustments to your sleep habits. Try sleeping on your side instead of your back, since this will allow your airway to expand more, as it no longer must fight directly against gravity. Also, WebMD.com recommends that you tilt the head of your bed upwards about four inches to reduce the strain of breathing in. While Snorlax's head seems slightly elevated, he is clearly still sleeping on his back and not his side. An easy change to make.
4. Lifestyle changes. Those who are obese, those who smoke, and those who drink large amounts of alcohol are all at greater risk for snoring (as well as obstructive sleep apnea in general). Snorlax needs to lose some weight, quit smoking, and lay off the booze. Perhaps lifestyle changes are the most important and most effective ways to address snoring, since they treat the root causes of snoring (obstructed pathways).
3. Anti-snoring devices. As you can probably imagine, there are plenty of sketchy websites out there offering ridiculous cure-all solutions to your snoring problem. Some of them, called mandibular advancement splints, move the tongue forward so it doesn't obstruct the airway. Another popular machine is the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, which pumps a steady stream of air through a mask to keep the airway open. While these devices have proven to be somewhat effective, they fail to treat the basic causes of snoring, and all they can do is mask the problem by treating the symptoms.
2. Surgery. This is usually the last step for severe snorers to take, since it is certainly the most intensive and most invasive. A treatment called uvulopalatopharyngoplasty involves widening the airway by removing tissue from the back of the throat (ironically, the name of the procedure is...a mouthful). While these procedures are usually successful, they also carry significant risks, as scarring can cause the airway to shrink even further after surgery. In the end, if you are seriously considering surgery, it is best to discuss your options with a qualified doctor and analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of each avenue.
1. Don't sleep. One of the two basic requirements for snoring to occur is that you must be asleep. Looks like I just beat the system. HAH.
So there you have it! You may be a Snorlax now, but by utilizing the new anti-snoring resources at your disposal, you don't have to be one forever.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoring#Treatment
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/snoring?page=2
http://snore-gonomics.com/
Disclaimer: I can't seriously advocate not sleeping as a cure for snoring. As everyone knows, life becomes increasingly miserable if you don't sleep, and performance on everything from academics to athletics suffers when your sleep debt is too high. DROWSINESS IS RED ALERT!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Las Vegas shenanigans, consciousness during sleep
So last weekend, the ultimate frisbee team went on our annual trip to Las Vegas (awesome, as always). Of course we do whatever we can to keep fees down, so we cram about 8 people into a hotel room made for 2.
Saturday night I was so tired after a day of ultimate that I went to bed early. The next morning, someone told me a funny story: apparently I was snoring later in the night, and somebody in the room said "Jimmy, cut it out," and I stopped immediately. Huh, what?
As a Sleep and Dreams student, this confused me greatly. The brainwave patterns of sleepers are significantly different from those of people who are awake, and although this may not change something basic like language processing, it should perhaps distort how I interpret the stimulus, if at all. Heck, even most definitions of sleep that Dr. Dement gave in class included an element of sensory separation from the outside world.
A quick dictionary search confirms: (n) sleep, a natural and periodic state of rest during which consciousness of the world is suspended. Was my consciousness of the world suspended, though, if I was able to hear and respond to the comment despite being asleep?
According to a 1999 study by the University of Ottawa, stimuli introduced during sleep cause varying levels of mental activity based on the phase of sleep during which they are presented. Perhaps the most interesting result here, however, was that a stimulus loud enough to arouse a reaction from a waking subject was also sufficient to cause a reaction in a subject in REM sleep. Although the brain shows some effect when presented with a sound stimulus in all stages of sleep, it seems that the brain is especially receptive during REM sleep. Perhaps one can deduce, then, that I may have been in a particularly receptive REM sleep cycle when I was told to "cut it out."
The field of research regarding how much new sensory information is actually processed during sleep seems fairly small. The concept of listening to a tape during your sleep and waking up with a head full of new knowledge seems like nothing more than a myth. My anecdote, however, reveals the potential for some level of truth behind these assertions - that, to some extent, the brain can be receptive and responsive to sensory stimuli even during sleep.
Sources:
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=sleep
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/archives/indiv.cfm?ID=19992163
Saturday night I was so tired after a day of ultimate that I went to bed early. The next morning, someone told me a funny story: apparently I was snoring later in the night, and somebody in the room said "Jimmy, cut it out," and I stopped immediately. Huh, what?
As a Sleep and Dreams student, this confused me greatly. The brainwave patterns of sleepers are significantly different from those of people who are awake, and although this may not change something basic like language processing, it should perhaps distort how I interpret the stimulus, if at all. Heck, even most definitions of sleep that Dr. Dement gave in class included an element of sensory separation from the outside world.
A quick dictionary search confirms: (n) sleep, a natural and periodic state of rest during which consciousness of the world is suspended. Was my consciousness of the world suspended, though, if I was able to hear and respond to the comment despite being asleep?
According to a 1999 study by the University of Ottawa, stimuli introduced during sleep cause varying levels of mental activity based on the phase of sleep during which they are presented. Perhaps the most interesting result here, however, was that a stimulus loud enough to arouse a reaction from a waking subject was also sufficient to cause a reaction in a subject in REM sleep. Although the brain shows some effect when presented with a sound stimulus in all stages of sleep, it seems that the brain is especially receptive during REM sleep. Perhaps one can deduce, then, that I may have been in a particularly receptive REM sleep cycle when I was told to "cut it out."
The field of research regarding how much new sensory information is actually processed during sleep seems fairly small. The concept of listening to a tape during your sleep and waking up with a head full of new knowledge seems like nothing more than a myth. My anecdote, however, reveals the potential for some level of truth behind these assertions - that, to some extent, the brain can be receptive and responsive to sensory stimuli even during sleep.
Sources:
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=sleep
http://www.websciences.org/cftemplate/NAPS/archives/indiv.cfm?ID=19992163
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Sleeping is giving in...
It just occurred to me that Dr. Dement would probably hate these (amazing) lyrics from the Arcade Fire:
"Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is
Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids..."
-Arcade Fire, Rebellion (Lies)
I've pulled a good number of successful all-nighters to the tune of that song. Drowsiness isn't red alert; it's a sign of weakness.
Just kidding...well, sort of. More sleep-related song lyrics as I come across them, maybe.
"Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is
Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids..."
-Arcade Fire, Rebellion (Lies)
I've pulled a good number of successful all-nighters to the tune of that song. Drowsiness isn't red alert; it's a sign of weakness.
Just kidding...well, sort of. More sleep-related song lyrics as I come across them, maybe.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Drowsiness is red alert...but sleep deprivation is torture
Sleep and Dreams is legendary for its innovative policy of giving out extra credit to students who sleep during lecture. I was privileged to be one of those people today - I came into lecture sleepy, and within five minutes, I was out cold. But you can't say I didn't plan ahead! Dr. Dement allocates a special "sleeping section" for students who want to sleep unharrassed, and although I always sit in that section anyway because I sometimes feel like I could fall asleep at any moment, I made sure sure to sit in the back of the sleep section today to get a good 50 minutes of shut-eye.
So apparently the policy about not disturbing sleepers isn't really set in stone. I heard from a friend after the class that Dr. Dement somehow spotted me (the man has incredibly good vision, I was sitting in the back of a big auditorium...) and asked the class if I should be woken up - and of course, being the sadists that they are, the class decided to screw with me. Dr. Dement asked me what the last thing I remembered was, and I honestly had no idea...I remembered that the topic of the lecture was "dreams", but can't recall much that he said. I think a psychoanalyst (didn't know they still existed) is giving a guest lecture on Friday. And lucid dreaming is cool. And the class laughed awkwardly when Dr. Dement talked about, to put it colloquially, "morning wood".
But although drowsiness may in fact be red alert, sleep deprivation is torture. Amnesty International says so. Apparently the KGB liked to use sleep deprivation to force information from its captives - a very convincing technique, I'm sure. The Israeli prime minister, once a victim of KGB sleep-deprivation techniques, went so far as to say, "In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it." Pretty intense, right? And here I am complaining about not being allowed to sleep through a class.
So apparently the policy about not disturbing sleepers isn't really set in stone. I heard from a friend after the class that Dr. Dement somehow spotted me (the man has incredibly good vision, I was sitting in the back of a big auditorium...) and asked the class if I should be woken up - and of course, being the sadists that they are, the class decided to screw with me. Dr. Dement asked me what the last thing I remembered was, and I honestly had no idea...I remembered that the topic of the lecture was "dreams", but can't recall much that he said. I think a psychoanalyst (didn't know they still existed) is giving a guest lecture on Friday. And lucid dreaming is cool. And the class laughed awkwardly when Dr. Dement talked about, to put it colloquially, "morning wood".
But although drowsiness may in fact be red alert, sleep deprivation is torture. Amnesty International says so. Apparently the KGB liked to use sleep deprivation to force information from its captives - a very convincing technique, I'm sure. The Israeli prime minister, once a victim of KGB sleep-deprivation techniques, went so far as to say, "In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it." Pretty intense, right? And here I am complaining about not being allowed to sleep through a class.
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