The pre-industrial era is particularly interesting to me regarding sleep. People's sleeping cycles mainly reflected the cycles of the sun, and seasons. They did however have a small break in the middle of the night where they would be awake for an hour or so at a time. People would stir to do all sorts of activities such as house work, visiting neighbors, attending local pubs, and making love. Today we find it strange that they would wake up in the middle of the night just to do these activities. Questions I ask myself about this time are why didn't they just stay up a little later? or wake up a little earlier? I myself would be VERY grumpy if my husband woke me up in the middle of the night just to get it on. The invention of electricity has been one of the major contributors to us staying up later and sleeping through out the night.

Irony is my favorite kind of humor, it makes me laugh in a sort of pathetic, paltry way. I was reading the material for last week "Sleep We Have Lost" and fell asleep on the floor while using the massive printed out copy as a pillow. When I awoke around 3-4 I wiped the drool off my face, and the copy and drug my limp body into the lofted dorm bed. The next morning all I could do was chuckle at my self as I moved my head slowly due to the large crick in my neck. Groggy mornings lead to late night studying, while my late nights full of studying lead to my groggy mornings. It's a vicious cycle that only weekends, and time management can cure. Both of which are low on stock.

It's amazing how much our world has changed, with all the technology, social factors, and general cultural shift that we have experienced. Even our sleeping lives have changed. In the Pre-Industrial days sleep was broken into two parts with a hour or two of wakefulness separating them. During this time people would perform lots of tasks, and visit with others. It was kind of like their social hour, people were busing during the day working to make a living so they made time for social interactions in the middle of the night. Smart. The people did however still attain the eight hours of sleep needed, they simply would go to bed earlier around nine or ten. A Danish pastor once quoted "Stay til nine you are my friend/ Til ten, that is alright/ but if you stay til 11 you are my enemy" the people in this time period went to bed much earlier than we do now days when the night is usually full of our social interactions. The peculiar way that society has been evolving from having a couple hours in the middle of the night to wake, to staying up later.

This weekend I attended a speech and debate tournament in Tulsa, we left Friday morning and returned Monday morning around 2. Throughout the weekend I was up late hours, and rose early to get to the competition. When we returned Monday morning I was tired and irritable I proceeded to crash into bed to be later awakened by my 5:30 alarm, it was time to get up and get moving. I dressed and got ready for the day ahead of me, then I was off to Lubbock to judge a debate tournament. Throughout the past weekend I noticed that my irritability was the least of my problems, much darker thoughts started to cloud my horizon of thought. I knew it was because of my lack of sleep and large amounts of stress but it was still disturbing. This is why I will not be conducting a sleep deprivation experiment, my mental health is worth much more to me.

When trying to decide what should be my topic for my research paper in this class, I decided that my efforts should be focused maybe not on the most researched topic, but one that was very interesting to me. I will be writing my paper over sleep deprivation. I will be expanding on the side effects, emotionally, mentally, and physically. I will be conducting an experiment myself to better understand my topic, and have some first hand knowledge. At the end of the paper I will draw some conclusions about why not sleeping for a certain amount of time causes these effects on our bodies.

Several weeks ago I went to the balloon fiesta in Albuquerque New Mexico, which is an awesome event and anyone who has the opportunity to go totally should. We needed to be there around 6:30-7:00 in the morning, and since people from all around the nation fill up all of the hotels in Albuquerque we decided to stay at a family friends house about two hours away from Albuquerque we had to get up around 3:30 to make it in time. We left the fiesta around 11 and we drove all the way back to Clovis (where I am from) to have dinner. I left my house in Clovis around 7 and returned back to Wayland around ten. I had a paper that I needed to get working on so I continued to stay up and work. I kept working until I fell asleep around 5 in the morning. Least to say I didn't go to church that morning. To get through this excruciating day I had around 7-8 cups of coffee. When I was trying to go to sleep I was exhausted but I was wired and couldn't seem to rest. The next day I woke up around 11 and got up to work some more on my paper, through out the day I noticed if any one said anything negative to me, even little things, I reacted much more than I would normally. My emotions, especially negative were heightened. So the moral of the story is when you haven't been sleeping well, don't make rash decisions you may regret it later.

Caffeine is one of the new staples of the American society. When I think of hard working people I think of them with a arm full of files in one hand and a cup of strong black coffee in the other. Since our society is so fixated with money and the accumulation of it, people have become obsessed with working. The time that these people have been putting in work has to come from somewhere, and people don't want to give up on their families, or fun activities so most of the time, so that time comes out of their sleep, and resting time. When you are tired though your brain is slower and cant remember as much as when you are well rested. Coffee, and other caffeinated drinks is a great pick me up to get you to the place where you can work efficiently. Coffee, and those other drinks have slowly been turning to a very helpful tool, to now a crutch something that we are addicted to.

The big drug companies have always been known to take advantage of what ever illness was sweeping over America in the past, and this new sleep-depravation epidemic is no exception. There has been all kinds of new sleeping drug, and apparatuses to enhance your sleep. These companies have made millions of dollars on these new schemes, and in this work-aholic society were the less you sleep the more money you can make, there is no lack of customers. The numbers are on the rise, the number of Americans who say they sleep less than six hours a night–16% in 2005, compared with 12% in 1998. Americans are buying into this scheme until we slow down and take our sleep seriously these companies will continue to profit on our sleepless stress filled nights.

Man hole 69 is a fictional story that is very intriguing to me. It talks about a surgery that was performed on three test subjects, that removed the need and the ability to sleep. The subjects were locked in some kind of coma, like a semi death. They were frozen in time. One of the explainations for this incident was that sleep is used as a form of escape from ourselves this got me to thinking about this explainiation and I have expanded it futher. We as people have many different traits, and personailities what if it was almost like there many different people in our heads (in a non-schizophrenic way) and what happens when you put many different people in a small space for an extended period of time? They fight and bicker, we all need time away from people. So sleep is our escape to allow those people room to live in harmony. I promise I don't have multiple personality disorder. At least I think.

We like to think of the US and its armies, as honorable. We see them as noble men and women who would give everything for their country, we think that the government would take notice of this and treat our soldiers with the upmost respect, and dignity. This is not the case, our armies are taking advantage of the sacrifice and service those men and women are making for this country and are trying to stretch them to perform, not just to their best ability, but super soldiers, pushing them beyond the natural limit their bodies take them. The government gives them "go pills" which is basically speed. We are drugging up our soldiers just so that they can push themselves to the absolute limit, we do not know what kind of lasting effects that this could have on them. We would rather drug them up, than allow them to be well rested.

I like to think of sleep abstractly, it not really for our bodies its not so that we can rest and recuperate physically. I like to think its all for our minds, we spend all day receiving information and reacting to it in the moment. Our brains are like sponges absorbing information, and experiences. We need those eight hours just so that we can get through the next day without our head spinning off its axis. We aren't prospering we are just surviving taking it one day at a time, and sometimes even that is too much, so we take naps.

So far in this class I have found out some interesting information , and I find it really intriguing. Especially because it is a thing that we do everyday, but sleep still has a sense of mystery around it, which makes me want to study it more. I really found it interesting about the types of dreams that you have during REM, and NREM and how NREM dreams help you deal with the day and helps you unconsciously categorize your memories. While REM sleep gives you hypothetical problems obstacles and problems so that you can better tackle them in the future. While I have no idea why I would need to rush to save my grandmother who was stuck in the chimney, while being handcuffed to a toddlers walking device, its possible so thanks REM sleep for all the crazy weird dreams I don't know what I would do without you.

I am sure that you all are aware of the epidemic of police brutality, or at least the medias perception of police brutality, I am however not a believer that the police force is all corrupt, and that it racially profiles but that is beside the point. After all of the attention and scrutiny on the police force we all want the best for the men and women who serve our cities around the country, so why is it that a study done on Med Page Today found that around 40% of all police officers screened positive for at least one sleep disorder. Some of the men and women who need to be the most responsible because of all the media attention are not getting an efficient amount of sleep. This lack of sleep can and will cause mistakes in the already criticized department.

I find it very ironic that I can very easily fall asleep in math class but when it comes to sleeping during the actual time it is appropriate to sleep I cannot. Well I decided to conduct an experiment to test and see if math is really just so boring that I fall asleep, or if it is my sleep deprivation. After the temporary shutdown of the Moody Science building my statistics class was canclled so my teacher posted a video onto blackboard so that the student would not fall behind, I was very greatfull for not only giving me the opportunity to stay caught up, but the oppertunity to make this expierment happen. So every night for the past week or so I have been playing that video my teacher posted of him talking about math to see if it would lull me to sleep, and it worked! My conclusion is that yes, math really can bore you to sleep, and that is a much cheaper thing to get you to sleep than any drug.

In the new age of the 21st century the work place has evolved in such a dramatic way that our new pioneers of the dedicated employee are having repercussion from it. We are completely consumed with the idea that that we have to sell our souls to be productive in the work place. The article Please Don't Make Me Go on Vacation found that "American workers have on average 16.6 paid vacation days but that more than one-third of employees (36 percent) did not plan to use their full vacation." Americans have the opportunity to take more vacation days but they consciously  choose not to. This can and will lead to accumulation of stress, lack of sleep, and overall depletion of energy. America needs to slow down before a major burnout of the workforce happens.

Exams, homework, and the looming date of October 19th are the reason I only get 4 hours of sleep each night this week. The switch that turns off my mind has be JB welded in the on position. Every time I start to relax I remember that one piece of homework that I did not complete, or that math test that I did bad on, and that wind down that I need from the day is delayed until 1 or 2 A.M. when I am satisfied that I am no longer a failure at life. Stress is a normal part of my life but school tends to nudge it to a large consuming part. If you like myself also struggle with stress and it is causing you to loose a large amount of time, sleep, or hair over it I have good news. Time management can help, and it has helped me I have gotten a small planner and I mark out times to do different assignments that I know that I struggle with. This has helped me to feel calmer about my assignments and to start to wind down from the day as soon as 11 o'clock. Stress is normal, and natural, in the right amount it is even a good thing for you, but don't let it take over your life. Sleep long and prosper my friends.

As a kid I remember that when I would get sick my mom would always make me stay in bed, or on the couch. She said that sick people need to get lots of rest, and along with my mother most Americans think that rest helps give a healing boost to most sick people. So why if a majority of Americans believe this way patients in ICU who are probably the people who need rest the most being kept awake by all the beeps, bright lights, and pesky constant nurse check ins? A study conducted in one New Jersey Hospital found that out of 147 nights, the researchers reported in 2004 in the American Journal of Critical Care, they found only nine uninterrupted periods of two to three hours. When you think about statistics its not that scary, it just numbers on a page that has nothing to do with you, but when its a loved one in that hospital you might react differently.

Just this week I moved to a new room in my dorm. The same dorm just upstairs, I think it is a nicer room I have a large window that looks over the entrance. Even though it is a nicer room and I am not disturbed as much in this one as I was in the last, I am having an extremely hard time sleeping. I can lay in my bed for 30+ minutes and still be counting sheep. When I do fall asleep it is very restless and I wake in the night several times. While I cannot sleep in my room I can however sleep in the classroom. It doesn't matter what class it is, even my favorite class I find myself pinching my arm to stay awake. I have taken several measures to help me sleep, I have been running 2 miles about two and a half hours before I plan on sleeping. I also have been drinking a green tea that is supposed to help your melatonin levels increase. I wonder why this very subtle change has caused my sleeping patterns to be so wild.

An over achieving society is an understatement for the difficulties that a young person these days faces when planning for the future. We are expected to perform in an extreme highly competitive academic learning environment, we have to keep up the pace so we wont be left behind. Could this type of environment that is meant to be productive and fruitful of knowledge actually be hindering us in the long run? The answer is Yes. In order to keep up, we have to sacrifice certain things to remain among the crowd and some of those things involve: sleep, social life, and family time. All three of these things are incredibly important to our development into happy healthy adults. If you have spare time you should really read Too-Busy Teens Feel Health Toll on the Washington post, it gives some great insight on how this over achieving, perfectionism society can cause great stress to students.

This weekend I had the pleasure of going home to see my parents, and sleep in my own bed. Lets just say that sleeping on an actually comfortable mattress was a un-awakening experience. (hardy-har-har) My body feels more rested than it has in several weeks, and I have more energy, even coming back to school when I wake up I still feel like I have rested better. At my old job I was a sales manager at a furniture store, so I can honestly say with confidence that your mattress so directly effects your sleep and it can really make a huge impact in how you sleep.
Fun fact of the day, humans spend on average one third of their life in bed, so a good mattress is really an investment, not a luxury.

Sleep is a magical thing. You lay down after a long day with the overwhelming and intimidating issues of the day on your mind, and (usually) within 5-15 minutes you are swept away into dream land for 7-9 hours and when you rise from this marvelous slumber you feel refreshed and ready to deal with the day, but what happens during those mysterious hours that you are so unavailable to the world? Even though those hours seem quite boring and short to you they are actually action packed and filled with brainwaves that would keep any scientist glued to his/her seat. When you are awake beta brainwaves are firing through your head these waves are small and fast and are the waves that keep you alert enough to deal with all of the problems that come throughout the day. When you lay down or are sitting in a resting position and are doing a relaxing activity your brain starts to transition to alpha waves which are similar to beta waves but are higher in amplitude and don’t come quite as fast. After staying with alpha waves for a while you start to feel the first stages of sleep and your brain waves keep coming in slower, and higher. Those waves are called theta, and then later throughout your sleep delta. Now all these waves come in when you are in your NREM sleep, in all stages 1, 2, 3, & 4. When you finally enter in REM sleep (which is where most of your vivid and wild dreams come from) your brain does a very interesting thing and initiates beta waves again. If you want a way to better understand these waves and their relationship to each other please reference “Sleep” by Steven W. Lockley, and Russell G. Foster on page 11 there is a chart that explains these waves very simply.

The predominating sound in the room is what actually is a small click every second keeping the steady pace of time, but to Abi it is the thundering and continuous reminder of each precious second of sleep time that is not being spent asleep. Each one of those obnoxious clicks, and ticks of that presumingly innocent bed bath and beyond wallclock just points the finger of blame at her saying "if only you hadn't had sugar so late at night you would be asleep right now" or "if you hadn't of taken that short nap today in dreamland you would be" but all that guilt and blame being spread around means nothing for it will not get her to sleep any faster. So take a deep breath girl and go to sleep for tomorrow will be full enough of its own troubles.