Importance of Sleep
As we all know, our time on Earth is limited. One of the most valuable resources that we have is time. Knowing this makes us want to use our time as efficiently as possible. You may realize that no matter how well you use your time, there still may not seem to be enough. At this point you may wonder where you can get more time. With the Fountain of Youth out of the picture, a place many people turn to (or rather away from) is their bed. We humans spend about one third of our lives sleeping. Is that not ridiculous? Why waste all that time when one could be out changing the world? Some who make this earth shattering discovery begin to live by the motto, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” In reality, this final resting time …show more content…
In this state, the body loses much of its awareness to the outside world. There are several different stages of sleep, the most interesting stage being rapid eye movement sleep. The majority of the time spent sleeping is in the non rapid eye movement sleep stages (Leikin 1130). The rapid eye movement sleep stage was discovered in 1953. As subjects slept, their brain activity was monitored. After about 350 trials, the scientists could conclude that the rapid eye movement stage is when dreams are most likely to take place. The data shows that only about ten percent of the sleepers awakened during rapid eye movement sleep did not experience detailed dreaming. Comparing this data to that of the sleepers awakened during non rapid eye movement stages tells that only about one tenth of dreaming takes place in non rapid eye movement sleep. This finding not only revealed dreaming habits, but also altered the way scientists would look at sleep. Previous assumptions that sleep was a time for the brain to rest had been disproven (Alvarez 90-91).
If sleeping does not rest the brain, what is the purpose of sleep? This is a very difficult question to answer. Over the past years, scientists have created and tested many different theories that attempt to explain the reason for sleep. There are a few theories that start to shed light on sleep, but there still is no perfect answer for why we
As we all know, our time on Earth is limited. One of the most valuable resources that we have is time. Knowing this makes us want to use our time as efficiently as possible. You may realize that no matter how well you use your time, there still may not seem to be enough. At this point you may wonder where you can get more time. With the Fountain of Youth out of the picture, a place many people turn to (or rather away from) is their bed. We humans spend about one third of our lives sleeping. Is that not ridiculous? Why waste all that time when one could be out changing the world? Some who make this earth shattering discovery begin to live by the motto, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” In reality, this final resting time …show more content…
In this state, the body loses much of its awareness to the outside world. There are several different stages of sleep, the most interesting stage being rapid eye movement sleep. The majority of the time spent sleeping is in the non rapid eye movement sleep stages (Leikin 1130). The rapid eye movement sleep stage was discovered in 1953. As subjects slept, their brain activity was monitored. After about 350 trials, the scientists could conclude that the rapid eye movement stage is when dreams are most likely to take place. The data shows that only about ten percent of the sleepers awakened during rapid eye movement sleep did not experience detailed dreaming. Comparing this data to that of the sleepers awakened during non rapid eye movement stages tells that only about one tenth of dreaming takes place in non rapid eye movement sleep. This finding not only revealed dreaming habits, but also altered the way scientists would look at sleep. Previous assumptions that sleep was a time for the brain to rest had been disproven (Alvarez 90-91).
If sleeping does not rest the brain, what is the purpose of sleep? This is a very difficult question to answer. Over the past years, scientists have created and tested many different theories that attempt to explain the reason for sleep. There are a few theories that start to shed light on sleep, but there still is no perfect answer for why we