Andre
Much research has been carried out to understand the social connection between sleep and sociology. There have been so many variations of the results of this research but we will be focusing on some few reliable ones with evidential instances that authenticate the claims. But first, it will be fair if we give a literal definition of sleep. Sleep is a naturally recurring state of body and mind that is characterized by a reduction in muscle activity in both humans and animals.
Though the definition is more scientific than social, a better understanding of how sleep works changes one’s narrative about the social aspect of sleep. We have been told from different scientific sources that an average man needs not less than seven hours of sleep every night. But we have seen in situations where individuals deprive themselves of a good night’s sleep. A situation that can result in a car accident when they eventually take the wheel, for example. Research has shown that people should be shown the implications of not having good sleep so that they start taking sleeping more seriously.
According to a recent poll by the US National Sleep Foundation, 20% of American adults who responded agreed that their lack of sleep does affect their performance at work at least two times a week. Unfortunately, 17% also acknowledged that they fall asleep once awhile while driving. Well, as dangerous and frightening as these reports are, these things are very much true, and the implications of this on our society is much more daring than we thought. The increasing number of accidents comes as a result of the fact that people still deny the possibility of falling asleep while driving.
People who don’t usually sleep well at night do fall into a state called the ‘microsleep’ state, where the individual falls asleep for a very brief period which usually lasts for seconds. In this state, they are “consciously blind”, but usually not aware they are falling asleep.
Okay, let’s move one step away from accident situations. There are other ways in which sleep (or lack of it) can affect the larger society. For example, a person suffering from sleep deprivation is most likely to suffer from memory impairment which in turn affects the greater society. This is so because the job the individual handles on a normal day will be affected, thus, affects the customers (the public).
Another research has shown that many years back, a specific type of memory consolidation comes alive hours after engaging in a visual discrimination task. This experiment was performed using clever sleep deprivation experimental tools. In the end, it was realized that sleep deprivation interferes with memory, contributing to poor attention. With such a result in mind, it is no longer strange why people underperform in their various activities e.g. academics, profession, even vocation sometimes. The research also threw more light on the relative importance of rapid eye movement (REM) and high-frequency EEG rhythms, which are the major types of sleep. A non-REM sleep involves a low-frequency rhythm or high magnitude. But based on a physiological calculation, non-REM and REM sleep looks more like a whole different case. But the real question is, do they play the same role in terms of consolidating the memory?
Well, it depends, because a new finding has demonstrated an important role played by “slow-wave sleep” which is another type of non-REM sleep. It happens more often in the early stages of night time, especially when one has fallen deep asleep. It was discovered that REM-dominated sleep was not enough for improving the memory, thus, the physiology of various stages of sleep has a direct relationship with the process of consolidating the memory.
The Sleep Dynamics
Not a lot of people understand what happens when we sleep, so we believe it is important we shed more light on the science of sleep. When we sleep, the ‘neurotransmitters, a nerve responsible for sending chemicals to the body, takes control of your sleeping pattern by acting on various groups of neurons in the brain. Serotonin and norepinephrine are the two types of neurotransmitters that make sure some parts of the brain are active or awake.
These two neurotransmitters connect the brain through the spinal cord with the help of the neurons in the brain stem. Other neurons domicile at the base automatically start signaling immediately after we fail asleep, switching off every other signal that makes us stay awake. But in another research, a chemical known as adenosine is said to start building in our blood when we sleep and it thus causes us to “doze off.” Meanwhile, adenosine beaks down when we sleep.
Negative Implication of Sleep Deprivation on an Individual
According to research from the journal Nature Communications, sleep-deprived people are likely to feel lonelier and less social when they are around people. According to Dr. Jay Puangco, a neurologist and a sleep specialist at the Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute, California, when an individual starts to experience sleep deprivation, it affects three major parts of their lives: cognition, attention, and mood. They will lack total interest in social interaction. The physical evidence of this is when the victim begins to lose the alertness required to cognate, process, or read body language needed for reasonable feedback.
Tips for Sleep
We can’t leave you with all the cautions and precautions about sleep deprivation without giving you at least a few tips about how to get a good sleep routine. First, you must take up the habit of exercising regularly in the day, but avoid late exercise in the evening. Others include:
• Avoid performing mind-stimulating activities, e.g. engaging in an argument before bed.
• Avoid taking alcohol 3 hours before bedtime
• Use the “Puangco method”. According to Puangco, you need to keep a to-do journal and write down things that worry you, after which you also write down things you need to do the next day. This procedure will clear your mind of any form of worries that may have been clouding your mind at that point.
In conclusion, sleep is a beautiful activity that one should not take for granted. Shortage of it can course individual pain, anxiety, performance issues, poor cognition, and more. Most importantly, the negative implication of sleep cognition affects those around you as well. So it is important that the society at large embrace the need for regular and routine sleep habits.
