The Absolute Essentials of Sleep Knowledge

One of the most overlooked areas with regard to achievement is the importance of sleep. There are crucial facts regarding sleep being an athlete’s priorities while trying to do well in academics as well as sports. Everyone should know and understand some of the following facts about “sleep knowledge” in order to foster health, productivity, safety and a permanently enhanced quality of life.

Sleep Need and Sleep Debt

Each of us has a specific daily sleep requirement. This is the amount of sleep that must be obtained each day on the average to avoid becoming sleep deprived. The vast majority of adults would fall within the range of eight hours plus or minus one hour. Teenagers need more. If the needed amount cannot be obtained a sleep debt is created. The sleep that is lost on successive nights accumulates progressively as a larger and larger sleep debt. The larger the sleep debt, the more powerful is the tendency to fall asleep in the daytime. If the sleep debt is large enough, falling asleep absolutely cannot be avoided. When people are chronically sleep deprived and don’t know it because they don’t know their specific individual sleep requirement, they tend to think of themselves as fatigued, tired , apathetic, unmotivated, exhausted and so forth. In the overwhelming number of instances, these feelings are manifestations of a large sleep deficit.

Drowsiness/Sleepiness

The onset of sleepiness or drowsiness is the moment when staying awake and attentive focus requires a conscious effort. Most commonly, this is needing to make a conscious effort to keep the eyes open. Drowsiness is the last step before falling asleep, not the first. In any hazardous or potentially hazardous situations such as driving, the onset of drowsiness should be regarded as a red alert—a powerful signal to get out of harm’s way instantly. Strong external and internal stimulation during wakefulness can mask the strong underlying tendency to fall asleep associated with a large sleep debt. If drowsiness occurs son after a transition from being active and moving about to a sedentary situation such as driving, it is likely that your sleep debt is huge and very dangerous.

How much Sleep does any particular person need?

“Sleep need” may be defined as the amount of sleep that, if obtained each day on the average, will forestall a progressive increase in our sleep debt. For each human being, there is some specific amount of sleep, which, if obtained each night, will produce no change in the way you feel in the daytime. This nightly amount is an individual’s personal daily sleep requirement.

The Biological Clock

The biological clock is the term applied to the brain process which drives twenty-four hour oscillations in body temperature, hormone secretion, and a host of other bodily activities. An important scientific breakthrough was the discovery of the precise location of the biological clock in the brain. It is housed I two tiny bilateral areas called the suprachiasmatic nuclei. From the perspective of our daily life, the most important function of the biological clock is to foster the orderly twenty-four hour alternation of sleep and wakefulness.

Clock-Dependent Alerting

This is a powerful internal signal arising from ones biological clock (suprachiasmatic nuclei) which alerts the brain and opposes the tendency to fall asleep. Clock dependent alerting (CDA) fosters consolidated periods of peak performance, high energy, and optimal mental function during specific periods on ones daily cycle. When the clock dependent alerting process turns off, an even larger sleep debt is unopposed. If your overall sleep debt is relatively low, DCA is sufficient to keep you awake and alert al day event in the absence of other sources of stimulation.

The Opponent Process Model

Sleep is regulated homeostatically. All this means is that if you get less sleep that you need, the tendency to fall asleep in the daytime will become progressively stronger; if you get more sleep than you need, the tendency to fall asleep in the daytime will become progressively weaker. CDA and the homeostatic sleep drive are independent neural processes (opponent processes) which oppose each other and interact to regulate the daily cycle of sleep and wakefulness in an optimal manner.

All Wakefulness is Sleep Deprivation

Regardless of how we feel when we are awake—tired, elated, energetic, apathetic, interested, bored, all wakefulness is sleep deprivation. From the time we wake up in the morning until the time we go to bed and fall asleep at night, the homeostatic mechanism in our brains is keeping track and responding. Some people apparently believe that they are not being sleep deprived unless they feel tired. Untrue. Some people think that the ordinary waking day is not sleep deprivation. Again, wrong. For example, being awake from eight in the morning until noon is usually not thought of as sleep deprivation. Nevertheless, it is. In order to sleep through the night, it is necessary to be sleep deprived (awake) during the prior approximately sixteen hours.

Drowsiness is the RED ALERT!

Surveys indicated that at least 80 percent of us know when we are about to fall asleep. We know because we feel drowsy. Most of us associate “drowsiness/sleepiness” with heavy eyelids, difficulty keeping the eyes open, and difficulty concentrating.

It is obviously terribly dangerous if you are having difficulty keeping your eyes open while you are driving. If, at this moment, you try to fight off the drowsiness by turning on the radio, opening the window or slapping your face, you are playing Russian roulette with three or more bullets in the six-chambered revolver.

The feeling of drowsiness is a Red Alert! If you do not respond immediately, you will die. Drowsiness means a large sleep debt is winning the battle for your mind and brain. There is only one appropriate response and that is to get out of harm’s way immediately. If getting out of harm’s way means getting off the road and taking a nap, or turning off a dangerous machine, this what you must do as a responsible human being.

It is irresponsible and unacceptable to drive drowsy. Driving drowsy is exactly the same as driving while intoxicated! Even if you choose to risk your own life and health, you have absolutely no right whatsoever to risk the lives of others.

The True Nature of Sleep

Sleep is not rest for the brain. Your brain is always active. If you believe that your brain is turned off during sleep, then it would be appropriate to say the brain never sleeps. At the very least, the brain never rests.

The one absolutely defining difference between wakefulness and sleep involves our consciousness. When awake, we are conscious of the real world and maneuver ourselves through its many challenges primarily in the service of survival. At the moment of sleep, our consciousness of the real world is completely shut down and we are conscious only of the inner world.

The Awake Brain is always trying to go to Sleep

There is no such thing as a passive, natural state of sleep, nor is there a possible, natural state of wakefulness. There are specific active brain mechanisms that promote wakefulness.

Your waking brain, driven by its homeostatic sleep mechanism, is always trying to go to sleep. During the day, CDA generally makes it very difficult to fall asleep. However, there is some large amount of sleep debt that will eventually overwhelm clock dependent alerting and every other kind of stimulation. At this moment, sleep will seize your brain.

Post Hoc Ero Propter Hoc

This translated from Latin, means “after this, therefore because of this”. This is probably the most common and classic logical fallacy. There is a marked tendency for human beings to assume that a consistent ordering of events proves causality. In American society, the assumption that lack of stimulation causes sleep to occur may be our greatest popular delusion.. We assume that boredom, a dull lecture, an overly pedantic teaching videotape, a droning voice are direct causes of sleepiness and sleep. Almost everyone assumes that eating a heavy meal will cause sleepiness. Large scale surveys have shown that about ninety percent of the adult population experience sleepiness after lunch, and assume that lunch alone is the culprit. This is not true.

The Sleep Debt “Unmasked”

As noted, most people think that a heavy meal, a warm room, a comfortable bed, a boring lecture, an alcoholic beverage are direct causes of sleepiness. As we have clearly stated, none of these things actually cause sleepiness. Rather, they merely unmask sleepiness. Anytime you feel drowsy in the daytime, particularly in class, you must conclude that you have a sizable carry over sleep debt. Drowsiness is not an inevitable consequence of lack of stimulation.

More Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

The other most common and serious logical fallacy involving sleep and wakefulness arises from the fact that the strongest period of clock dependent alerting occurs late in the day in adolescents and young adults. At this age level, most people have the experience of being tired, fatigued, apathetic, or even drowsy and struggling to stay awake in the middle of the day, particularly in the earl afternoon classes. Then, even without sleeping, these feelings go away. Feeling tired and drowsy gives way to increasing alertness, high energy and high motivation and generally a new sense of refreshed alertness. This typical sequence leads to the erroneous conclusion that not only is drowsiness caused by lunch, but it a transitory phenomenon as well. It is almost impossible for a naïve individual to conclude that sleep debt accumulates when its effect obviously goes away.

Is it possible to be unaware of being asleep?

People have a wide range of subjective sensitivities. It is clear that people who have fallen asleep for a few moments will deny it. In sleep deprivation situations, there can be “micro sleeps” that subjects deny. However, we believe that humans can learn to be more aware.

Can we get too much sleep?

In many surveys, more than seventy percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “It is possible to get too much sleep”. Apparently, many people have experienced feeling lousy or groggy after an unusually long sleep. To conclude that this is due to too much sleep is incorrect. Sleep is not the culprit. This is a very important point because the erroneous belief is a barrier to acquiring healthy sleep habits.

More about normal sleep

Of course, there is a lot more to say about sleep. A fundamental fact is that sleep consists of two entirely different organic states. One kind of sleep is REM and the other is non-REM. While they are very different from one another, both kinds of sleep possess the defining characteristics discussed previously in this section—a matter of perceptual disengagement. Both kinds of sleep occur every night, and they alternate with one another every ninety minutes on the average.

Sleep Disorders

Sleep specialists currently diagnose eighty-eight specific disorders all of which were accurately and comprehensively described only after 1970 when the world’s first sleep disorders clinic opened at Stanford University. Some are both very common and very serious. Altogether, at least three quarters of all adults have one or more diagnosable sleep disorders. Sleep disorders are less common in teens.

Breathing during sleep

Quite possibly the single, biggest health problem in the entire world involves impaired breathing during sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea is among the most common chronic illnesses from which humans will suffer. Untreated, it progresses to disability and overwhelming fatigue….perhaps even cardiovascular disease. Death often occurs from heart attack, stroke, and cardiac arrest or as a result from an accident caused by dosing off at the wheel. It is likely that every student in school knows someone who snores very loudly. This is the cardinal symptom of obstructive sleep apnea. While not everyone who snores has obstructive sleep apnea, all snorers do have impaired breathing during sleep. A personal who obstructive sleep apnea cannot breath while asleep because the throat closes and prevents air flow.

America is a sleepy society

How many Americans are seriously or dangerously sleep deprived? There is no doubt whatsoever that vast numbers of us in school, in the workplace, in the transportation industry, in a variety of service industries and particularly in shift work situations are carrying a dangerously large sleep debt.

Remember that drowsiness is a red alert!

If you recall nothing else from this article remember drowsiness is a red alert. For the rest of our life, this phrase should leap into your mind automatically whenever your eyelids start to get heavy: whenever you would like to close your eyes for just a few seconds because keeping them open is getting difficult. When you begin to feel drowsy, you have arrived at the edge of the abyss….step back and get out of harms way! Nothing is so important as your health. Wait until morning, wait until rested and wait until you have a clear state of mind.

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