Sleep deprivation….Sleep Problems making your CoVid-19 problems Worse … So Tired All the Time? ….part 172

All across the globe, people’s lives, as well as their physical and mental well-being, have been affected by the CoVid-19 pandemic.

The stress and strain of home life, as well as being a healthcare professional in this time, and the wider societal impact of COVID-19 have led to altered sleep patterns in many people and specifically in healthcare professionals on the frontline in the fight against COVID-19.

Sleep is important in helping to maintain overall occupational performance and overall well-being. It is also vital to have an understanding of the importance of sleep and the immune response during these times.

Sleep may very well be one of the most important prophylactics to keep people's physical and mental state healthy during the pandemic

Sleep has a major impact on your mental health. If you don’t get enough, even for a night, it can lead to lethargic responses and difficulty concentrating. Lack of sleep causes increased irritability, decreased control over responses, increased appetite, depressed mood, forgetfulness, etc.

Likewise, your mental health can affect your sleeping patterns. Those suffering from depression often experience increased fatigue and sleep more than what is needed. Many people have anxiety disorders that can cause insomnia, the inability to sleep.

The relationship between sleep and mental health is direct, and both are needed to have an overall healthy lifestyle. If not watched carefully, lack of sleep can cause impulsive, reckless behavior, especially in those already suffering from a mental health problem.

Sleep deprivation is absolutely incurable. The reason is simple: The word “sleep deprivation” is one of overwhelmingly many academic buzzwords, which actually obscure what we are thinking and talking about when using this word. You cannot cure an academic buzzword.

The way we speak (or write) is the way we think …

The word “sleep deprivation” describes an action, something we do – not something we “get”, become bewitched with, fall ill with, or become a victim of. “Sleep deprivation” is the inaccurate academic buzzword for the action of depriving someone of sleeping.

The grammatically correct word for this action would of course be “the sleep-depriving” (someone, e.g. oneself).

Do not confound this action with its result. The result of the action ‘sleep-depriving someone’ is not “sleep deprivation”, the result is exhaustion and damage to body, emotions, memory, and mind. These results you can only cure by sleeping.

Can you notice the difference, if you start thinking “sleep-depriving someone” (instead of thinking “sleep deprivation”)? It instantly raises the question who exactly is depriving whom exactly of sleeping (answer that honestly to yourself) …

Forgive the medics for the buzzword “sleep deprivation”, they absolutely need to create a “thing” they can fight against (something to treat, therapize, and/or medicate), even if it is only an academic phantom.

The trouble is that actions (e.g. sleep-depriving oneself) of course cannot be medically treated. The competence to improve actions is that of educators and teachers and the “cure” of actions is learning to do them right.

However, if you start thinking with clarity – like: “I am sleep-depriving myself” (instead of thinking “help!!! I am a victim of sleep deprivation”), it would actually become a real “no-brainer” what you (and only you) could do about it, don’t you think?

So, how about the “cure” of “sleep deprivation”?

Logically, there is absolutely nothing to be “cured”. To exorcise the (inexistent) phantom “sleep deprivation” is extremely simple, though:

Stop depriving yourself of sufficient sleeping – start doing your daily required sleeping (nobody else can do your sleeping for you and you must learn to do it right). If you do that seriously, the phantom “sleep deprivation” of course stands not the slightest chance.

Focus on dealing with your addiction to staying awake too long daily and improve your sleep hygiene (something you must do when awake).

If you feel self-worthy enough to sleep even a little extra, you may even start catching up with some unattended results of your previous habitual self-sleep-depriving – you may start attending to some carried-forward damage you have done to your body, emotions, memory, and mind – which you can only achieve by extra sleeping.

Disclaimer: The information on this POST is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional advice. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this article is for general information purposes / educational purposes only, and to ensure discussion or debate. 

Thank you …Two chemicals in specific: dopamine, and serotonin are both strong factors in your state of emotion or lack thereof, and its believed that these chemicals lingering in synapses (re uptake is not perfect, imagine throwing a bag of golf balls at a wall) are the cause of emotions like fear in dreams.

While you’re sleeping those chemicals are being cleaned up and recovered for future use, and more is being made if necessary. An interesting note if you've ever had an emotional rollercoaster of a day and gotten to the end and just felt numb, now you know partially why.

So while your dreaming your brain is working to clean those extra chemicals out of your synapses, and when you don’t sleep, the mess of extra chemicals creating responses can cause some effects of depression (this is simplifying somewhat, the mechanism is more complicated than this, but what isn't?).

This effect is identical in mechanism but not magnitude to the crash effect of certain recreational drugs such as Ecstacy.

Over a long enough period of time abusing your mind in this way can cause your brain to treat your sleep deprived, dirty synapse self as the new normal, which can lead to quite serious mental health problems as a result of the chemical imbalance, including but not limited to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder symptoms, and i seem to remember even major personality disorders.

Like everything’s in the world our human body also has his own limit and capacity.

For an example a car has its own capacity to run what if you drive it more than its capability what happen is either the engine get burn or the tires will blowout and how to prevent it from happen is drive the car by its limit.

That how our body is made it has its own capacity and limit when you use your brain for learning and you are learning or using your mental power for something for a long time suddenly your brain get tired.

But the pressure you have given to your brain for learning will still sustain after you stop but what you have learned is permanently deposited to brain in memory.

But the pressure will still there and if you continue doing it if you try to learn something again with the pressure the pressure you already have will increase and brain cells start to die and you will be uncontrollable you won’t have a control on your transmitter to not to happen this human has gifted sleep which reduce the pressure and end it by renewing brain so you can continue another learning next day with new pressure.

Want to add word or two?

During sleep, the body moves through five different stages of both REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep. Over the course of the night, the body will go through this five-stage cycle four to six times, spending an average of 90 minutes in each stage.

Each stage of sleep serves a unique restorative function, including muscle recovery, hormone regulation, and memory consolidation, making it essential to allow enough time to cycle through all sleep stages. Without a full night of sleep, your body and mind are deprived of the essential elements needed to help you conquer the day.

Your comment ….? 

Stage 1

Stage one of sleep, also known as the transitional phase, occurs when one finds themselves floating in and out of consciousness. During this NREM stage, you may be partially awake while your mind begins to drift off.

This period of drowsiness eventually leads to a light sleep. This is also the time when the muscles jerk, followed by a falling sensation that jolts you back into consciousness. This experience is known as hypnic myoclonic. After winding down in stage one, your sleep cycle will slip you into stage two.

Stage 2

Almost 50% of the time spent asleep over the course of the night is spent in stage two. Stage two is also a non-REM phase and is one of the lighter stages of sleep. Even though it is a light stage, the heart rate begins to slow and the core body temperature decreases.

During stage two, eye movement stops and brain waves slow with the occasional burst of waves called sleep spindles. Stage two can also be characterized by the unstructured periods that alternate between muscle tone and muscle relaxation.

Stages 3 & 4

Stages three and four are characterized as the deep stages of sleep, and are often the hardest to wake up from. If you try to wake someone up when they are in stages three or four, they will most likely be disoriented and groggy for minutes after they awake. Stages three and four are often grouped together because they are the periods of slow wave sleep (SWS).

Slow wave sleep is a NREM phase of sleep, and is the deepest sleep that your body enters throughout the night. It is called slow wave sleep because the brain waves slow to what are known as delta waves with the occasional faster wave. As the body moves from stage three to stage four, the number of delta waves increase and the faster waves decrease.

In addition to the deep sleep caused by the delta waves, blood pressure drops even further, and breathing becomes deeper, slower, and more rhythmic. During slow wave sleep there is no eye movement, and the body becomes immobile.

However, even though there is no muscle movement, the muscles still have the ability to function. These are the stages when children sometimes experience nightmares, bedwetting and sleepwalking.

Stages three and four of sleep are extremely rejuvenating to the body. During slow wave sleep, hormones are released that aid in both growth and appetite control. The growth hormones help to replenish muscles and tissues that were exerted over the course of the day, and the appetite controlling hormones help limit feelings of excessive hunger the following day.

These hormones are essential to the development of a strong body and help control unnecessary over-eating. In addition to the release of critical hormones, the blood flow to the muscles increases, providing restorative oxygen and nutrients.

Stage 5

Stage five is the only stage of rapid eye movement (REM), and is unlike any other sleep phase because the brain is bursting with activity. Most adults spend about 20% of sleep in REM, while infants spend almost 50%. During non-REM sleep, the mind rests while the body heals, but in REM sleep the mind energizes itself while the body is immobile.

REM sleep is called as such because the eyes dart in various directions while the limbs and muscles are temporarily paralyzed. Breathing becomes shallower and irregular while the heart rate and blood pressure rise from the levels they were in previous stages.

Most dreaming takes place in stage five as a result of heightened, desynchronized brain waves, almost similar to being awake. This stage of sleep revitalizes the brain, supporting sharp and alert daytime function.

Individuals begin waking up at the end of stage 5. Upon waking up, an individual’s core body temperature begins to rise in order to prepare the body for the activity of the day ahead.