aserokin, Author at The Sleep Blog

When You Sleep – Where Does Your Body Go?

Guest Post by Genevieve who works in affiliation with Universal Health Services, Inc which has a variety of healthcare management companies.

Sleep walking is not at all unusual for children and young adults and mostly disappears with age. Minor sleep walking is no problem in children. They are safely locked in their house and any actions they may take are often instantly counteracted by the adults in the house. But what if you are one of the individuals who continue to sleep walk into adulthood? And what if you live by yourself?

I am one of those adults. The sleepwalking I engage in is entirely harmless and pointless and really does not require any sort of sleep therapy, but can actually cause a series of small annoying problems if not controlled. No matter how many times I double check my alarm clock before I go to bed, it is frequently turned off and occasionally turned to another time entirely when I wake. “Put it across the room,” you say? I will simple walk across the room to make the change.

For those who have digital dexterity while sleeping, sometimes moving an alarm clock across the room or programming more than one is enough. If you still manage to sabotage your wake up, using a phone or computer are options. These devices are far more difficult to change without being aware enough to go through several menus and pressing specific buttons. If you are worried about cold dialing your friends in the middle of the night, using a touch screen device can work magic. Not only do you have to select the right button, but you have to do it without any tactile clues! If you are not interested in purchasing electronics, look into getting a wakeup call service.

Sleepwalkers often engage in the most common behaviors they perform each day. For most people, eating occurs many times each day. A small snack probably isn’t harmful, but it is never fun to wake up to find your refrigerator has been open all night and there are crumbs on the counters and floor. If you find yourself making the occasional foray to the kitchen, consider placing the items you most frequently go for in multiple bags, preferably ones that make noise. Making sure that your refrigerator doors swings all the way closed without help can save on replacing perishables. Child locks on cupboards and drawers are a great way to prevent unconscious snacking.

Most of the problems caused by sleepwalking can be easily contained with a few small precautions. If you are prone to leaving your house, over eating or any number of more serious behaviors, it may benefit you to go to a sleep therapy center and see if they can provide any options.

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Important:
The Sleep Blog does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Instead, this website provides general information for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider if you have questions or concerns regarding any medical condition or treatment.

Motor Skill Efficiency is Tied to Sleep

If you’ve ever felt klutzy after missing out on sleep, there’s scientific evidence to back you up. It’s a fact that, when learning a new action pattern involving motor skills, performance improvement can continue for up to 24 hours after training. Recent research shows that getting some sleep can make that window of improvement even more effective. In a study by Matthew Walker and his team from Harvard’s Laboratory of Neurophysiology, it was discovered that a night of sleep can increase motor skill speed by 20% without losing accuracy.

Stage 2 NREM Sleep

Walker and his team designed an experiment involving five groups, whose members underwent different combinations of training for a skill involving fine finger tapping movements, wakefulness, sleep, and finger rest. The researchers found that Stage 2 NREM sleep was the most effective way of improving motor skills, especially when this stage of the cycle occurred late at night. Stage 2 NREM, or Non-Rapid Eye Movement, can be described as an intermediate stage of sleep in which the sleeper descends progressively deeper into unconsciousness. This stage is characterized by larger brain waves than Stage 1 NREM, accompanied by occasional episodes of quick activity. Someone who is in this stage of sleep would not be able to see even if their eyes were opened, would be unlikely to be awakened by sounds, and would have slower bodily functions.

Sleep Stages and Motor Skill Development

There was a considerable amount of variance between subjects who slept and those who didn’t, and the researchers found that 52% of that difference in improvement could be accounted for by Stage 2 NREM sleep. But the amount of improvement by sleep stage could change depending upon the complexity of the task being learned. When subjects have been instructed to learn skills that involve more finely tuned movements, they have been shown to react negatively to REM sleep deprivation. Walker and his team hypothesize that the level of complexity that characterizes a learned task is associated with a certain sleep stage, with more difficult tasks responding to REM stages and less challenging tasks responding to NREM sleep. Either way, getting enough sleep while you learn can help you increase the level of your performance on a variety of tasks.

Walker, Matthew P. et al. “Practice with Sleep Makes Perfect: Sleep-Dependent Motor Skill Learning.” Neuron 35 (July 2002): 205-211.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She spends much of her days blogging about Education and CollegeScholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Back to School – 5 Tips to Get Back on Track

Summer is over and it’s time to hit the books again. School can get stressful, and stress manifests itself in many ways (one of which is difficulty to fall asleep). Here are a few tips to help you stay on track and get a good night sleep.

Get organized. Having your room cluttered for the summer may be acceptable, after all who wants to spend the hot days cleaning. But as the school year approaches, it’s best to organize your clothes, books, and school supplies. This way you won’t be wasting time looking for stuff and you will feel more relaxed and able to get a better sleep in an organized environment.
Do your homework right after school, or as soon as possible, but don’t wait until the clock hits 10:00PM. You will stay up at night and you won’t be able to perform as well in class. And don’t bother procrastinating — hoping you will wake up early enough to do it before school; chances are you won’t
Don’t fall behind. Making up for missed work can put stress on you, which consequently might keep you up at night.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Making a schedule and sticking to it will help you stay on track. Overwhelming yourself with extra work and responsibilities might set you back.
Learn to manage your social life. School work takes up most of your day. So, focus on it during the week. Don’t stay up on the phone with your sweetheart or gossip with your bff till 2am. Instead make time for your friends on the weekends.

by Agnieszka