This week’s topic was sleep which I think is very interesting so I decided to do the assignment. In almost three years of college I have not pulled a true all-nighter. There have been times like last week where I only got 3 hours of sleep but I have never really stayed up all night studying or finishing a project. I consider myself to be someone who needs a lot of sleep. First semester I took naps all the time but this semester I scheduled my classes later so I don’t need naps. On average, I try to get at least 9 hours of sleep per night and even then I’m almost always tired. For this blog I looked into the science of sleep deprivation, studying, and the power of naps.
I found a study done by the University of California, Berkeley which showed that an hour long nap can boost and restore brain power. The study said that the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become. The results support previous data from the same research team that pulling an all-nighter decreases the ability to cram in new facts by nearly 40 percent, due to a shutdown of brain regions during sleep deprivation. In the UC Berkeley sleep study I reviewed, 39 healthy young adults were divided into two groups: nap and no-nap. At noon, all the participants were subjected to a rigorous learning task intended to exercise the hippocampus, a region of the brain that helps store fact-based memories. Both groups performed at comparable levels. At 2:00 p.m., the nap group took a 90-minute nap while the no-nap group stayed awake. Later that day participants performed a new round of learning exercises. Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning but those who napped did better and actually improved in their capacity to learn. These findings support the researchers' hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain's short-term memory storage and make room for new information.
The same study was also reviewed in an article for E Science News. It mentioned similar studies done at UC Berkeley including one that established that fact-based memories are temporarily stored in the hippocampus before being sent to the brain's prefrontal cortex which may have more storage space. In the latest study, the researchers discovered that this memory-refreshing process occurs during a specific stage of sleep. EEG tests indicated that this refreshing of memory capacity is related to Stage 2 non-REM sleep.
This study kind of surprised me a bit. I knew that sleep is very important for memory but I didn’t know naps were so powerful. I love taking naps but usually I feel sluggish and still feel tired afterwards. As far as remembering things goes, it made me wonder if my three hours of sleep after cramming the majority of the night would be effective in helping me remember information. Obviously I’m sure it would be better than no sleep at all but I wonder how big of a difference there would be between 8 hours of sleep and 3 hours of sleep.
The paper I read this week examined the Junction Point Model, which was proposed by Maharishi in 1972. This model posits that waking, NREM sleep, and REM dreaming are sequential expressions of a single underlying field, which Maharishi referred to as the unified field theory. This unified field allegedly gives rise to the physiology and psychology of waking, sleeping, and dreaming. The model starts by acknowledging that waking, sleep, and dreaming are discrete states, as shown by data regarding brain stem activity, neurotransmitter balance, and eye movement patterns. As the states are discrete, it is proposed that one must fade completely away before another can take hold. Between any two of these states lie a ‘junction point’, which can apparently be used as a window into the unified field. The experience of the unified field is theoretically available at these junction points, but is more directly assessed during meditation.
For the study discussed in the paper, seven right-handed males that practiced transcendental meditation conformed to a 9:45pm-5:45am sleep schedule for a week before having their sleep monitored in a lab for two sequential nights of sleep. During these nights, participants’ brain activity was monitored via EEG, EOG, & EMG. At the transitions between waking, NREM, and REM, they observed significant peaks in theta/alpha wave power. Delta peaks are associated with deep rest and recovery. Theta/alpha peaks have only been reported in the waking/sleeping transition but are usually ignored, as they do not fit into standard sleep categories. These theta/alpha peaks are often preceded or accompanied by body movements and heightened EMG. The first stage of hypnagogic sleep is characterized by the diffusion of alpha waves and is associated with the feeling of floating or drifting. The article at hand considers these alpha waves to be associated with the theorized junction points.
They went on to discuss how this junction point model would relate to lucid dreaming. They first reported that meditators have claimed to have had experienced “witnessed dreaming”, which is different from lucid dreaming, in that the witnessed dreamer passively observes the process of dreaming, whereas the lucid dreamer seems to require activation of cognitive functions to participate in their dream world. They also mentioned that lucid dreaming is often preceded by alpha bursts, but that lucid and non-lucid dreams show rather low levels of alpha waves during the actual dream. They speculated that the alpha burst prior to lucidity could be an indicator of awareness passing through the junction point between NREM sleep and REM dreaming. They continue by saying that if lucidity is the result of greater levels of alertness, then lucid dreamers should show enhanced alertness in the other states of consciousness as well. This coincides with the findings from another study that I read, which analyzed lucid dreaming in hardcore gamers, because of their increased attention abilities. I thought this last part was pretty interesting. The first part of the study I was interested in because it related to Maharishi and his unified field theory, which is also the exact reason why I cannot take it seriously.
Terms: Sleep, Transcendental Meditation, Junction point model, dreaming, consciousness, unified field theory
Travis, F. (1994). The junction point model: a field model of waking, sleeping, and dreaming, relating dream witnessing, the waking/sleeping transition, and transcendental meditation in terms of a common psychophysiologic state. Dreaming, 4, 91-104.
Sleep, the first think in any context it comes up in, or the subject it is being linked to, or even just randomly hearing the word from an outside conversation is that I defiantly don’t get enough of it. I always feel like I have too much I need to do, or things that I should get done, what I could be doing instead. I do not take naps, not one for sleeping in. However, I do sometimes fall asleep (unwillingly) early. Fact is, I myself and I’m sure plenty if not most other individuals do not get enough sleep. This is not what I chose to write about it’s just what kept coming up in the articles I had looked though so I figured it would be importaint to mention, even though we all know it already. Anyways, while searching for a topic I came across a page by the name of “Business Insider” and an article that had been published called “Fifteen Things You Should Know About Sleep”. I liked these topics because they were different from others I had came across. The topic I chose to look more into was fact number nine; “Sleeping directly after learning something new will improve your ability to remember it effectively”. The studies I had read from EBSCO only mentioned this briefly so I turned to Google.
The first article began to explain that we have all heard that getting good sleep before learning new things improves your chances of taking it all in but we have not heard much, if anything information about the important of sleeping after learning. It is believed that after learning new information the best thing one can do is to “sleep on it”. Simple explanation for this is, when you sleep the information you have recently absorbed is sucked into your memory and while you sleep your memory is strengthened. The research of NIH and their findings may hold the ability to help individuals of all ages retain the information by holding on the memories not only until test time but as they get older. When we sleep our brain makes its rounds or cycles thought different stages of sleep. It explains that the first cycle of sleep prepares you to learn new things. Following this it stated that if an individual does not sleep before let’s say attending a morning class, he/she’s ability to learn new material may drop to 40%. This was new to me, and makes me think a lot about all those nights I stayed up studying for a test or writing papers, pretty much screwing myself over in the end. Dr. Robert, a sleep expert from Harvard University explains that people are usually unable to recall the information they have learned soon after they had learned it. However, let the individual take a nap and their chances of remembering the same information they forgot five minutes after learning is greatly increased. This is because when we sleep, even for a short time, the brain reviews your recent memories and categorizes the importance accordingly. Even though the article was a bit short it covered the topic and explained the information better than any other site I came across or any article I attempted to read. I think the topic is interesting, and the way it is explained makes sense. We all know how important sleep is, yet majority of us are guilty for dismissing it’s importants. I wish there was more over this subject of sleep, hopefully more will come! http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/issue/apr2013/feature2
For the sleep reading blog, I read the article (2010), “Meditation Acutely Improves Psychomotor Vigilance, and May Decrease Sleep Need.” The title intrigued me, especially on the second half where it claims meditation can lead to less need for sleep. People—including myself—always say they do not have time to meditate and our professor says, “You don’t have time NOT to do it,” which is very true, especially if this article is valid and reliable. Some nights I get about 4 hours of sleep and the next, when I don’t have to get up early, I can sleep for about 11 hours! It is really a waste of the day, but if I feel tired, I’m not going to want to do anything or I’ll just take a nap later. Meditating every day would help free up more time that has been previously used for sleep and would be used for productiveness in the future.
This article (2010) focuses on immediate performance improvement on a psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) and also whether longer bouts of meditation may alter sleep need. PVT reaction times would be assessed before and after 40 minute periods of mediation, nap, or control activity. Expert meditators were tested on the PVT before each activity, 10 minutes after each activity, and one hour later. All ten expert meditators improved their PVT reaction times immediately following mediation and all but one improved immediately following the naps. The second study on the amount of sleep needed examined sleep times in experienced mediators and non-meditators. Sleep duration in novice mediators was lower than the non-mediators and the general population norms.
The results show that at least a short-term performance improvement in novice meditators. Those who meditated for hours had a decrease in total sleep time. It can be hypothesized that meditation decreases the need for a lot of sleep.
The article that I read about sleep had to do with the treatment and management with insomnia and the use of mindfulness based meditation. Before I start reporting on the article, I wanted to take time to say that my sleep schedule has drastically improved over the last semester. I can’t say that this is all due to the meditation that I have been doing, but it has definitely made a difference. I used to have a real hard time falling asleep when I wanted to and would rely on music or some other media source to fall asleep. Now I am able to calm myself down and get into a better state of mind prior to going to sleep. Not only that but I am able to wake up better, and the internal clock I can attribute to the meditation. With that being said, the article I read supports my own experiences.
The article that I read took a clinical approach and only studied one woman and her experience with the mindfulness meditation and its effects on her sleep. This woman is known as Maria throughout the article and has been diagnosed with sever sleeping problems (both getting to sleep and staying asleep). In the article that I read, the authors created a mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia (MBT-I) and administered it to the middle aged woman known as Maria. This form of therapy focuses on paying attention to the mental and physical states of sleep as well as discerning between the two states. MBT-I attempts to reduce unwanted wakefulness at night and manage the emotional reactions to the disturbance of sleep and fatigue throughout the waking hours. This means that the MBT-I will not attempt to fix insomnia, but rather it focuses on reducing the severity of the problems caused by insomnia. This is a different way of looking at disorders and illnesses because it doesn’t blindly focus on “fixing” the problem at hand; rather it makes the problem more manageable. It should be noted that the MBT-I practice was not the only treatment that was administered during the time of this study. The limitation of sleep time also helped Maria with controlling her insomnia.
Prior to the administration of MBT-I, a pilot study of 30 participants tried out a 6 week program. It is reported that half of the participants had at least 50% reduction is wake time during their allotted sleeping time. The information gathered for Maria’s in-depth study was massive. Her total time slept in each stage of sleep was documented as well as her emotional state and arousal state and different times throughout the day. She also took a battery of self-report measures to see how she felt about her own life (using Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills, Glasglow sleep effort scale, hyper arousal scale, and the insomnia severity scale). Results show that Maria had a reduction in the amount of time that it took her to fall asleep as well as fewer waking hours during her allowed sleep time.
Ong, J., & Sholtes, D. (2010). A mindfulness-based approach to the treatment of insomnia. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 66(11), 1175-1184. doi:10.1002/jclp.20736
The topic this week was sleep and meditation, which is something I would defiantly like to learn more about. I had sleep apnea for a long time with out knowing it until one of roommates said that I snored really loud and would gasp for breath in my sleep. I also get cluster headaches, which they think, came from having sleep apnea and the decreased blood oxygen levels. I have since had surgery to get my tonsils taken out which was the cause of the sleep apnea. Although I don’t wake up as much during the night I still have extreme difficulty sleeping and have to take medication to sleep. I hope that through continuing my mediation practices I can improve my sleep quality.
Since this is such an important topic to me I looked up many different articles and sites that had to do with sleep in hopes to find more information that would support the claim that meditation will help to improve sleep. One of the articles that I read talked about a technique that we learned about in the first book, which was progressive full body relaxation. This was a step by step guide and not so much a scientific article but it talked about how to start with one part of your body and slowly relax and release tensions in your body. Another article that I found talked about how mediation and its ability to help reduce stress will in turn help to improve sleep. Many insomnia issues that not only I have but many people have are that when they get into bed they can’t relax and let go of what happened during the day or what is needed to be done the next day. With your mind being so active and that’s its thinking about stressful thoughts this is a continuous cycle that impairs our sleep. With decreased sleep many problems can occur from depression or increased anxiety to name a few. The article specifically talked about mindfulness mediation and that it focuses on us being aware of thoughts and decrease the reactivity to negative ones that could impair our sleep. I think that through my experience I have seen a better ability to fall asleep but I still have trouble staying sleep and once waking up I have trouble falling back asleep, so hopefully with more practice I can improve these issues I have been having.
Meditation is often used as a sleep aid. People turn to meditation to fall asleep and some claim to need less sleep. The study I examined looks to utilize meditation along with cognitive behavioral therapy to help with insomnia. The goal of adding meditative practices to the standard CBT intervention is to pre-sleep and sleep related arousal in order to achieve restorative sleep.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that is found in about 10 percent of the U.S. population. The common practice to treat insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I. CBT-I has some positive effect in reducing sleep onset latency and improving on sleep efficiency. However, it does not give ample attention to sleep-related arousal. This arousal can come during pre-sleep of cause awakening during sleep. Both scenarios prevent one from attaining consistent and efficient sleep.
This study takes place at Stanford University. Participants were recruited around campus and the Bay area through the use of fliers at health centers and the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic. Participants must be suffering from Psychophysiological Insomnia. This type of insomnia consists of a learned or conditioned arousal. Participants were screened using a battery of sleep tests. During the study participants were to keep sleep diaries to monitor progress, as well as meditation diaries to monitor their meditations.
The intervention utilized consisted of mindfulness training and exercises congruent with MBSR methods in combination with sleep education and CBT-I. The treatment consisted of six weekly sessions lasting for 2 hours each during which they covered methods of meditation, goals, and sleep education. Participants were to meditate on their own for 30 minutes 5 times per week. They were also instructed to get out of bed if unable to fall asleep after 20 minutes and to meditate prior to attempting to sleep again.
The results of the study were as follows; a decrease in total wake time, an increase in total sleep time, and a decrease in pre-sleep arousal. The levels of improvement for the participants were quite large. Enough so that nearly all participants no longer fit the diagnosis criteria for Psychophysiological Insomnia.
This study was first of its kind and utilized to establish a base for future studies. It is clear that mediation can be a positive supplement for the treatment of insomnia. I would speculate that it is the mindfulness factor that makes the biggest difference. Becoming mindful of ones surrounding and environment would drastically reduce arousal factors. Meditation also helps to mitigate the effects of strong emotional swings. The result would be that a practiced meditator would be less sensitive to slight arousal factors like a noise or light within the room.
Ong, J. C., Shapiro, S. L., & Manber, R. (2008). Combining mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia: a treatment-development study. Behavior Therapy, (2), 171.
Meditation is often used as a sleep aid. People turn to meditation to fall asleep and some claim to need less sleep. The study I examined looks to utilize meditation along with cognitive behavioral therapy to help with insomnia. The goal of adding meditative practices to the standard CBT intervention is to pre-sleep and sleep related arousal in order to achieve restorative sleep.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that is found in about 10 percent of the U.S. population. The common practice to treat insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I. CBT-I has some positive effect in reducing sleep onset latency and improving on sleep efficiency. However, it does not give ample attention to sleep-related arousal. This arousal can come during pre-sleep of cause awakening during sleep. Both scenarios prevent one from attaining consistent and efficient sleep.
This study takes place at Stanford University. Participants were recruited around campus and the Bay area through the use of fliers at health centers and the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic. Participants must be suffering from Psychophysiological Insomnia. This type of insomnia consists of a learned or conditioned arousal. Participants were screened using a battery of sleep tests. During the study participants were to keep sleep diaries to monitor progress, as well as meditation diaries to monitor their meditations.
The intervention utilized consisted of mindfulness training and exercises congruent with MBSR methods in combination with sleep education and CBT-I. The treatment consisted of six weekly sessions lasting for 2 hours each during which they covered methods of meditation, goals, and sleep education. Participants were to meditate on their own for 30 minutes 5 times per week. They were also instructed to get out of bed if unable to fall asleep after 20 minutes and to meditate prior to attempting to sleep again.
The results of the study were as follows; a decrease in total wake time, an increase in total sleep time, and a decrease in pre-sleep arousal. The levels of improvement for the participants were quite large. Enough so that nearly all participants no longer fit the diagnosis criteria for Psychophysiological Insomnia.
This study was first of its kind and utilized to establish a base for future studies. It is clear that mediation can be a positive supplement for the treatment of insomnia. I would speculate that it is the mindfulness factor that makes the biggest difference. Becoming mindful of ones surrounding and environment would drastically reduce arousal factors. Meditation also helps to mitigate the effects of strong emotional swings. The result would be that a practiced meditator would be less sensitive to slight arousal factors like a noise or light within the room.
Ong, J. C., Shapiro, S. L., & Manber, R. (2008). Combining mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia: a treatment-development study. Behavior Therapy, (2), 171.
http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=AONE&userGroupName=uni_rodit&tabID=T002&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA234083638&&docId=GALE|A234083638&docType=GALE&role=
Several times over the past week, I have been told that sleep deprivation has the potential to cause a whole host of problems later on in life ranging from depression to obesity to cancer. Additionally, a consistent level of six hours of sleep per night is equivalent to losing an entire night’s worth of sleep every week, with no ability to compensate. The cognitive abilities of the sleep deprived person are significantly less and can constitute even a permanent decrease in said abilities. As one who over the past year has slept an average of 5 hours per night, I have been a bit worried about my ability to sleep, though since relinquishing my position as vice president, I have gotten 8-9 hours of sleep nearly every night. My problem is one that many college students face with the pressures of succeeding in school, working to pay for said schooling, needing a social life and the mental health benefits of time for leisure and recreation.
As such, when I saw an article that discussed whether meditation could compensate for sleep, I was immensely intrigued. The researchers were wondering whether meditation could a) replace actual sleep time in experienced meditators and b) make up for lost sleep time in novice meditators.
To investigate the first question, researchers designed a longitudinal study with participants who meditated for 2-3 hours per day and a control group who had no experience meditating. The participants were told to journal their sleep time and quality, while also using actigraphy to measure psychovigilance motor control (PVT), which is essentially reaction time. The researchers found that the average sleep length of the meditators was 5.2 hours a night, compared to 7.48 hours a night for non-meditators with zero effect on PVT. This sounds fine and dandy and even remarkable until one realizes very little time is actually saved. However, with the added benefits of the meditation (i.e., emotional regulation, increased attention and motivation, etc.), it still may be worth it.
To investigate the second question, researchers measured participants’ PVT several times after each type of the following activities: nap, controlled activity (reading, listening to soft music, conversing with friends), meditation, 32 hours of no sleep and 32 hours of no sleep plus meditation. The researchers found that PVT was slower after a nap and the controlled activities, but faster after the meditation. However, these were measured during the late afternoon, which is the nadir of performance for college students who on average went to bed at 1:00 a.m. and woke around 8:30 a.m. Obviously, PVT was significantly slower, and with several lapses, after the 32 hours of no sleep, but the meditation did compensate for it somewhat.
In summation, meditation does compensate or some level of sleep deprivation, but sleep, in general, appears to be more effective. Alas, my hope of finding a replacement for sleep is not looking too promising at the moment.
For this week’s exploration blog, I found examines the long-term effects of this integrated intervention on measures of sleep and sleep-related distress (Ong et al., 2009). Chronic insomnia is estimated to impact approximately one of 10 adults and has significant negative implications on quality of life. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia has demonstrated efficacy and is currently recommended as the first line treatment for chronic insomnia. Mindfulness mediation is a self-regulation practice that has several health benefits when taught in a short-term group program known as mindfulness-based stress reduction. Similar to cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, the mindfulness-based stress reduction program has been found to have long-term benefits that extend beyond the end of treatment. Mindfulness-based stress reduction has also been found to have durable effects on symptoms of depression, anxiety, and pain during a three-year follow-up of individuals with fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a common syndrome in which a person has long-term, body-wide pain and tenderness in the joints, muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues. Fibromyalgia has also been linked to fatigue, sleep problems, headaches, depression, and anxiety.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is a similar mindfulness-based program that is specifically designed to prevent the relapse of depression. The mindfulness-based stress reduction program has been found to improve sleep among cancer patients and adolescents with substance abuse history. Ong & colleagues (2009) found that a unique intervention integrating mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia had benefits at post treatment on both sleep and sleep-related distress for individuals with psychological insomnia. They also reported statistically and clinically insignificant improvements in several nighttime symptoms suggest that combining the two could potentially improve the long-term management of chronic insomnia by leading to sustained improvements in both sleep and associated daytime distress.
This study examined a subgroup of participants who completed a stage I treatment-development study that followed the guidelines for developing behavior treatments. Participants included adults aged between 18 and 65 years who met research diagnostic criteria for psychophysiological insomnia. The six-week group intervention consisted of an integration of the mindfulness training and exercises from the mindfulness-based stress reduction program and group cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. This intervention emphasized on alleviating the nocturnal symptoms of insomnia and decreasing emotional and physiological arousal (e.g., coping with sleep-related distress). Participants were instructed to engage in meditation practice between sessions for at least 30 minutes per day, five days per week. The second half of the session was spent discussing behavioral changes focusing on nocturnal symptoms (sleep restriction, stimulus control, sleep education, and sleep hygiene) that are taught in most) that are taught in most cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia treatment packages.
Participants completed one week of sleep and meditation diaries and questionnaire related to mindfulness, sleep, and sleep-related distress, including the Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale, the Glasgow Sleep Effort including the Pre-Sleep Arousal, the Glasgow Sleep Effort Scale, the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills, and the Insomnia Episode Questionnaire. Participants who reported at least one insomnia episode (≥1 month) during the follow-up period had higher scores on the Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale (P
Ong, J. C., Shapiro, S. L., & Manber, R. (2008). Combining mindfulness meditation with cognitive-behavior therapy for insomnia: a treatment-development study. Behavior therapy, 39(2), 171-182.
Terms: Insomnia, Cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep-related distress, Mindfulness mediation, mindfulness-based stress reduction, Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale, the Glasgow Sleep Effort including the Pre-Sleep Arousal, the Glasgow Sleep Effort Scale, the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills, and the Insomnia Episode Questionnaire.
This week’s topic was sleep which I think is very interesting so I decided to do the assignment. In almost three years of college I have not pulled a true all-nighter. There have been times like last week where I only got 3 hours of sleep but I have never really stayed up all night studying or finishing a project. I consider myself to be someone who needs a lot of sleep. First semester I took naps all the time but this semester I scheduled my classes later so I don’t need naps. On average, I try to get at least 9 hours of sleep per night and even then I’m almost always tired. For this blog I looked into the science of sleep deprivation, studying, and the power of naps.
I found a study done by the University of California, Berkeley which showed that an hour long nap can boost and restore brain power. The study said that the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become. The results support previous data from the same research team that pulling an all-nighter decreases the ability to cram in new facts by nearly 40 percent, due to a shutdown of brain regions during sleep deprivation. In the UC Berkeley sleep study I reviewed, 39 healthy young adults were divided into two groups: nap and no-nap. At noon, all the participants were subjected to a rigorous learning task intended to exercise the hippocampus, a region of the brain that helps store fact-based memories. Both groups performed at comparable levels. At 2:00 p.m., the nap group took a 90-minute nap while the no-nap group stayed awake. Later that day participants performed a new round of learning exercises. Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning but those who napped did better and actually improved in their capacity to learn. These findings support the researchers' hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain's short-term memory storage and make room for new information.
The same study was also reviewed in an article for E Science News. It mentioned similar studies done at UC Berkeley including one that established that fact-based memories are temporarily stored in the hippocampus before being sent to the brain's prefrontal cortex which may have more storage space. In the latest study, the researchers discovered that this memory-refreshing process occurs during a specific stage of sleep. EEG tests indicated that this refreshing of memory capacity is related to Stage 2 non-REM sleep.
This study kind of surprised me a bit. I knew that sleep is very important for memory but I didn’t know naps were so powerful. I love taking naps but usually I feel sluggish and still feel tired afterwards. As far as remembering things goes, it made me wonder if my three hours of sleep after cramming the majority of the night would be effective in helping me remember information. Obviously I’m sure it would be better than no sleep at all but I wonder how big of a difference there would be between 8 hours of sleep and 3 hours of sleep.
Terms: sleep, concentration, memory consolidation, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex
Sources: http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/02/21/a.midday.nap.markedly.boosts.brains.learning.capacity
Alger, S. E., Lau, H., & Fishbein, W. (2012). Slow wave sleep during a daytime nap is necessary for protection from subsequent interference and long-term retention. Neurobiology Of Learning And Memory, 98188-196. doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2012.06.003
The paper I read this week examined the Junction Point Model, which was proposed by Maharishi in 1972. This model posits that waking, NREM sleep, and REM dreaming are sequential expressions of a single underlying field, which Maharishi referred to as the unified field theory. This unified field allegedly gives rise to the physiology and psychology of waking, sleeping, and dreaming. The model starts by acknowledging that waking, sleep, and dreaming are discrete states, as shown by data regarding brain stem activity, neurotransmitter balance, and eye movement patterns. As the states are discrete, it is proposed that one must fade completely away before another can take hold. Between any two of these states lie a ‘junction point’, which can apparently be used as a window into the unified field. The experience of the unified field is theoretically available at these junction points, but is more directly assessed during meditation.
For the study discussed in the paper, seven right-handed males that practiced transcendental meditation conformed to a 9:45pm-5:45am sleep schedule for a week before having their sleep monitored in a lab for two sequential nights of sleep. During these nights, participants’ brain activity was monitored via EEG, EOG, & EMG. At the transitions between waking, NREM, and REM, they observed significant peaks in theta/alpha wave power. Delta peaks are associated with deep rest and recovery. Theta/alpha peaks have only been reported in the waking/sleeping transition but are usually ignored, as they do not fit into standard sleep categories. These theta/alpha peaks are often preceded or accompanied by body movements and heightened EMG. The first stage of hypnagogic sleep is characterized by the diffusion of alpha waves and is associated with the feeling of floating or drifting. The article at hand considers these alpha waves to be associated with the theorized junction points.
They went on to discuss how this junction point model would relate to lucid dreaming. They first reported that meditators have claimed to have had experienced “witnessed dreaming”, which is different from lucid dreaming, in that the witnessed dreamer passively observes the process of dreaming, whereas the lucid dreamer seems to require activation of cognitive functions to participate in their dream world. They also mentioned that lucid dreaming is often preceded by alpha bursts, but that lucid and non-lucid dreams show rather low levels of alpha waves during the actual dream. They speculated that the alpha burst prior to lucidity could be an indicator of awareness passing through the junction point between NREM sleep and REM dreaming. They continue by saying that if lucidity is the result of greater levels of alertness, then lucid dreamers should show enhanced alertness in the other states of consciousness as well. This coincides with the findings from another study that I read, which analyzed lucid dreaming in hardcore gamers, because of their increased attention abilities. I thought this last part was pretty interesting. The first part of the study I was interested in because it related to Maharishi and his unified field theory, which is also the exact reason why I cannot take it seriously.
Terms: Sleep, Transcendental Meditation, Junction point model, dreaming, consciousness, unified field theory
Travis, F. (1994). The junction point model: a field model of waking, sleeping, and dreaming, relating dream witnessing, the waking/sleeping transition, and transcendental meditation in terms of a common psychophysiologic state. Dreaming, 4, 91-104.
Sleep, the first think in any context it comes up in, or the subject it is being linked to, or even just randomly hearing the word from an outside conversation is that I defiantly don’t get enough of it. I always feel like I have too much I need to do, or things that I should get done, what I could be doing instead. I do not take naps, not one for sleeping in. However, I do sometimes fall asleep (unwillingly) early. Fact is, I myself and I’m sure plenty if not most other individuals do not get enough sleep. This is not what I chose to write about it’s just what kept coming up in the articles I had looked though so I figured it would be importaint to mention, even though we all know it already. Anyways, while searching for a topic I came across a page by the name of “Business Insider” and an article that had been published called “Fifteen Things You Should Know About Sleep”. I liked these topics because they were different from others I had came across. The topic I chose to look more into was fact number nine; “Sleeping directly after learning something new will improve your ability to remember it effectively”. The studies I had read from EBSCO only mentioned this briefly so I turned to Google.
The first article began to explain that we have all heard that getting good sleep before learning new things improves your chances of taking it all in but we have not heard much, if anything information about the important of sleeping after learning. It is believed that after learning new information the best thing one can do is to “sleep on it”. Simple explanation for this is, when you sleep the information you have recently absorbed is sucked into your memory and while you sleep your memory is strengthened. The research of NIH and their findings may hold the ability to help individuals of all ages retain the information by holding on the memories not only until test time but as they get older. When we sleep our brain makes its rounds or cycles thought different stages of sleep. It explains that the first cycle of sleep prepares you to learn new things. Following this it stated that if an individual does not sleep before let’s say attending a morning class, he/she’s ability to learn new material may drop to 40%. This was new to me, and makes me think a lot about all those nights I stayed up studying for a test or writing papers, pretty much screwing myself over in the end. Dr. Robert, a sleep expert from Harvard University explains that people are usually unable to recall the information they have learned soon after they had learned it. However, let the individual take a nap and their chances of remembering the same information they forgot five minutes after learning is greatly increased. This is because when we sleep, even for a short time, the brain reviews your recent memories and categorizes the importance accordingly. Even though the article was a bit short it covered the topic and explained the information better than any other site I came across or any article I attempted to read. I think the topic is interesting, and the way it is explained makes sense. We all know how important sleep is, yet majority of us are guilty for dismissing it’s importants. I wish there was more over this subject of sleep, hopefully more will come!
http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/issue/apr2013/feature2
For the sleep reading blog, I read the article (2010), “Meditation Acutely Improves Psychomotor Vigilance, and May Decrease Sleep Need.” The title intrigued me, especially on the second half where it claims meditation can lead to less need for sleep. People—including myself—always say they do not have time to meditate and our professor says, “You don’t have time NOT to do it,” which is very true, especially if this article is valid and reliable. Some nights I get about 4 hours of sleep and the next, when I don’t have to get up early, I can sleep for about 11 hours! It is really a waste of the day, but if I feel tired, I’m not going to want to do anything or I’ll just take a nap later. Meditating every day would help free up more time that has been previously used for sleep and would be used for productiveness in the future.
This article (2010) focuses on immediate performance improvement on a psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) and also whether longer bouts of meditation may alter sleep need. PVT reaction times would be assessed before and after 40 minute periods of mediation, nap, or control activity. Expert meditators were tested on the PVT before each activity, 10 minutes after each activity, and one hour later. All ten expert meditators improved their PVT reaction times immediately following mediation and all but one improved immediately following the naps. The second study on the amount of sleep needed examined sleep times in experienced mediators and non-meditators. Sleep duration in novice mediators was lower than the non-mediators and the general population norms.
The results show that at least a short-term performance improvement in novice meditators. Those who meditated for hours had a decrease in total sleep time. It can be hypothesized that meditation decreases the need for a lot of sleep.
Key terms: meditation; psychomotor vigilance task; sleep
Kaul, P., Passafiume, J., Sargent, C., O’Hara, B. (2010). Meditation acutely improves psychomotor vigilance, and may decrease sleep need. Behavioral And Brain Functions: BBF, 647. doi: 10.1186/1744-9081-6-47
The article that I read about sleep had to do with the treatment and management with insomnia and the use of mindfulness based meditation. Before I start reporting on the article, I wanted to take time to say that my sleep schedule has drastically improved over the last semester. I can’t say that this is all due to the meditation that I have been doing, but it has definitely made a difference. I used to have a real hard time falling asleep when I wanted to and would rely on music or some other media source to fall asleep. Now I am able to calm myself down and get into a better state of mind prior to going to sleep. Not only that but I am able to wake up better, and the internal clock I can attribute to the meditation. With that being said, the article I read supports my own experiences.
The article that I read took a clinical approach and only studied one woman and her experience with the mindfulness meditation and its effects on her sleep. This woman is known as Maria throughout the article and has been diagnosed with sever sleeping problems (both getting to sleep and staying asleep). In the article that I read, the authors created a mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia (MBT-I) and administered it to the middle aged woman known as Maria. This form of therapy focuses on paying attention to the mental and physical states of sleep as well as discerning between the two states. MBT-I attempts to reduce unwanted wakefulness at night and manage the emotional reactions to the disturbance of sleep and fatigue throughout the waking hours. This means that the MBT-I will not attempt to fix insomnia, but rather it focuses on reducing the severity of the problems caused by insomnia. This is a different way of looking at disorders and illnesses because it doesn’t blindly focus on “fixing” the problem at hand; rather it makes the problem more manageable. It should be noted that the MBT-I practice was not the only treatment that was administered during the time of this study. The limitation of sleep time also helped Maria with controlling her insomnia.
Prior to the administration of MBT-I, a pilot study of 30 participants tried out a 6 week program. It is reported that half of the participants had at least 50% reduction is wake time during their allotted sleeping time. The information gathered for Maria’s in-depth study was massive. Her total time slept in each stage of sleep was documented as well as her emotional state and arousal state and different times throughout the day. She also took a battery of self-report measures to see how she felt about her own life (using Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills, Glasglow sleep effort scale, hyper arousal scale, and the insomnia severity scale). Results show that Maria had a reduction in the amount of time that it took her to fall asleep as well as fewer waking hours during her allowed sleep time.
Terms: Meditation, insomnia, sleep, mindfulness, fatigue.
Ong, J., & Sholtes, D. (2010). A mindfulness-based approach to the treatment of insomnia. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 66(11), 1175-1184. doi:10.1002/jclp.20736
The topic this week was sleep and meditation, which is something I would defiantly like to learn more about. I had sleep apnea for a long time with out knowing it until one of roommates said that I snored really loud and would gasp for breath in my sleep. I also get cluster headaches, which they think, came from having sleep apnea and the decreased blood oxygen levels. I have since had surgery to get my tonsils taken out which was the cause of the sleep apnea. Although I don’t wake up as much during the night I still have extreme difficulty sleeping and have to take medication to sleep. I hope that through continuing my mediation practices I can improve my sleep quality.
Since this is such an important topic to me I looked up many different articles and sites that had to do with sleep in hopes to find more information that would support the claim that meditation will help to improve sleep. One of the articles that I read talked about a technique that we learned about in the first book, which was progressive full body relaxation. This was a step by step guide and not so much a scientific article but it talked about how to start with one part of your body and slowly relax and release tensions in your body. Another article that I found talked about how mediation and its ability to help reduce stress will in turn help to improve sleep. Many insomnia issues that not only I have but many people have are that when they get into bed they can’t relax and let go of what happened during the day or what is needed to be done the next day. With your mind being so active and that’s its thinking about stressful thoughts this is a continuous cycle that impairs our sleep. With decreased sleep many problems can occur from depression or increased anxiety to name a few. The article specifically talked about mindfulness mediation and that it focuses on us being aware of thoughts and decrease the reactivity to negative ones that could impair our sleep. I think that through my experience I have seen a better ability to fall asleep but I still have trouble staying sleep and once waking up I have trouble falling back asleep, so hopefully with more practice I can improve these issues I have been having.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleepless-in-america/201401/mindful-sleep
key terms: sleep, mediation, stress, full body relaxation, mindfulness meditation, depression, anxiety
Meditation is often used as a sleep aid. People turn to meditation to fall asleep and some claim to need less sleep. The study I examined looks to utilize meditation along with cognitive behavioral therapy to help with insomnia. The goal of adding meditative practices to the standard CBT intervention is to pre-sleep and sleep related arousal in order to achieve restorative sleep.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that is found in about 10 percent of the U.S. population. The common practice to treat insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I. CBT-I has some positive effect in reducing sleep onset latency and improving on sleep efficiency. However, it does not give ample attention to sleep-related arousal. This arousal can come during pre-sleep of cause awakening during sleep. Both scenarios prevent one from attaining consistent and efficient sleep.
This study takes place at Stanford University. Participants were recruited around campus and the Bay area through the use of fliers at health centers and the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic. Participants must be suffering from Psychophysiological Insomnia. This type of insomnia consists of a learned or conditioned arousal. Participants were screened using a battery of sleep tests. During the study participants were to keep sleep diaries to monitor progress, as well as meditation diaries to monitor their meditations.
The intervention utilized consisted of mindfulness training and exercises congruent with MBSR methods in combination with sleep education and CBT-I. The treatment consisted of six weekly sessions lasting for 2 hours each during which they covered methods of meditation, goals, and sleep education. Participants were to meditate on their own for 30 minutes 5 times per week. They were also instructed to get out of bed if unable to fall asleep after 20 minutes and to meditate prior to attempting to sleep again.
The results of the study were as follows; a decrease in total wake time, an increase in total sleep time, and a decrease in pre-sleep arousal. The levels of improvement for the participants were quite large. Enough so that nearly all participants no longer fit the diagnosis criteria for Psychophysiological Insomnia.
This study was first of its kind and utilized to establish a base for future studies. It is clear that mediation can be a positive supplement for the treatment of insomnia. I would speculate that it is the mindfulness factor that makes the biggest difference. Becoming mindful of ones surrounding and environment would drastically reduce arousal factors. Meditation also helps to mitigate the effects of strong emotional swings. The result would be that a practiced meditator would be less sensitive to slight arousal factors like a noise or light within the room.
Terms: Insomnia, mindfulness, meditation, MBSR, CBT-I, arousal
Ong, J. C., Shapiro, S. L., & Manber, R. (2008). Combining mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia: a treatment-development study. Behavior Therapy, (2), 171.
Meditation is often used as a sleep aid. People turn to meditation to fall asleep and some claim to need less sleep. The study I examined looks to utilize meditation along with cognitive behavioral therapy to help with insomnia. The goal of adding meditative practices to the standard CBT intervention is to pre-sleep and sleep related arousal in order to achieve restorative sleep.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that is found in about 10 percent of the U.S. population. The common practice to treat insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I. CBT-I has some positive effect in reducing sleep onset latency and improving on sleep efficiency. However, it does not give ample attention to sleep-related arousal. This arousal can come during pre-sleep of cause awakening during sleep. Both scenarios prevent one from attaining consistent and efficient sleep.
This study takes place at Stanford University. Participants were recruited around campus and the Bay area through the use of fliers at health centers and the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic. Participants must be suffering from Psychophysiological Insomnia. This type of insomnia consists of a learned or conditioned arousal. Participants were screened using a battery of sleep tests. During the study participants were to keep sleep diaries to monitor progress, as well as meditation diaries to monitor their meditations.
The intervention utilized consisted of mindfulness training and exercises congruent with MBSR methods in combination with sleep education and CBT-I. The treatment consisted of six weekly sessions lasting for 2 hours each during which they covered methods of meditation, goals, and sleep education. Participants were to meditate on their own for 30 minutes 5 times per week. They were also instructed to get out of bed if unable to fall asleep after 20 minutes and to meditate prior to attempting to sleep again.
The results of the study were as follows; a decrease in total wake time, an increase in total sleep time, and a decrease in pre-sleep arousal. The levels of improvement for the participants were quite large. Enough so that nearly all participants no longer fit the diagnosis criteria for Psychophysiological Insomnia.
This study was first of its kind and utilized to establish a base for future studies. It is clear that mediation can be a positive supplement for the treatment of insomnia. I would speculate that it is the mindfulness factor that makes the biggest difference. Becoming mindful of ones surrounding and environment would drastically reduce arousal factors. Meditation also helps to mitigate the effects of strong emotional swings. The result would be that a practiced meditator would be less sensitive to slight arousal factors like a noise or light within the room.
Terms: Insomnia, mindfulness, meditation, MBSR, CBT-I, arousal
Ong, J. C., Shapiro, S. L., & Manber, R. (2008). Combining mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia: a treatment-development study. Behavior Therapy, (2), 171.
http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=AONE&userGroupName=uni_rodit&tabID=T002&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA234083638&&docId=GALE|A234083638&docType=GALE&role=
Several times over the past week, I have been told that sleep deprivation has the potential to cause a whole host of problems later on in life ranging from depression to obesity to cancer. Additionally, a consistent level of six hours of sleep per night is equivalent to losing an entire night’s worth of sleep every week, with no ability to compensate. The cognitive abilities of the sleep deprived person are significantly less and can constitute even a permanent decrease in said abilities. As one who over the past year has slept an average of 5 hours per night, I have been a bit worried about my ability to sleep, though since relinquishing my position as vice president, I have gotten 8-9 hours of sleep nearly every night. My problem is one that many college students face with the pressures of succeeding in school, working to pay for said schooling, needing a social life and the mental health benefits of time for leisure and recreation.
As such, when I saw an article that discussed whether meditation could compensate for sleep, I was immensely intrigued. The researchers were wondering whether meditation could a) replace actual sleep time in experienced meditators and b) make up for lost sleep time in novice meditators.
To investigate the first question, researchers designed a longitudinal study with participants who meditated for 2-3 hours per day and a control group who had no experience meditating. The participants were told to journal their sleep time and quality, while also using actigraphy to measure psychovigilance motor control (PVT), which is essentially reaction time. The researchers found that the average sleep length of the meditators was 5.2 hours a night, compared to 7.48 hours a night for non-meditators with zero effect on PVT. This sounds fine and dandy and even remarkable until one realizes very little time is actually saved. However, with the added benefits of the meditation (i.e., emotional regulation, increased attention and motivation, etc.), it still may be worth it.
To investigate the second question, researchers measured participants’ PVT several times after each type of the following activities: nap, controlled activity (reading, listening to soft music, conversing with friends), meditation, 32 hours of no sleep and 32 hours of no sleep plus meditation. The researchers found that PVT was slower after a nap and the controlled activities, but faster after the meditation. However, these were measured during the late afternoon, which is the nadir of performance for college students who on average went to bed at 1:00 a.m. and woke around 8:30 a.m. Obviously, PVT was significantly slower, and with several lapses, after the 32 hours of no sleep, but the meditation did compensate for it somewhat.
In summation, meditation does compensate or some level of sleep deprivation, but sleep, in general, appears to be more effective. Alas, my hope of finding a replacement for sleep is not looking too promising at the moment.
Terms: meditation, mindfulness, PVT
For this week’s exploration blog, I found examines the long-term effects of this integrated intervention on measures of sleep and sleep-related distress (Ong et al., 2009). Chronic insomnia is estimated to impact approximately one of 10 adults and has significant negative implications on quality of life. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia has demonstrated efficacy and is currently recommended as the first line treatment for chronic insomnia. Mindfulness mediation is a self-regulation practice that has several health benefits when taught in a short-term group program known as mindfulness-based stress reduction. Similar to cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, the mindfulness-based stress reduction program has been found to have long-term benefits that extend beyond the end of treatment. Mindfulness-based stress reduction has also been found to have durable effects on symptoms of depression, anxiety, and pain during a three-year follow-up of individuals with fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a common syndrome in which a person has long-term, body-wide pain and tenderness in the joints, muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues. Fibromyalgia has also been linked to fatigue, sleep problems, headaches, depression, and anxiety.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is a similar mindfulness-based program that is specifically designed to prevent the relapse of depression. The mindfulness-based stress reduction program has been found to improve sleep among cancer patients and adolescents with substance abuse history. Ong & colleagues (2009) found that a unique intervention integrating mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia had benefits at post treatment on both sleep and sleep-related distress for individuals with psychological insomnia. They also reported statistically and clinically insignificant improvements in several nighttime symptoms suggest that combining the two could potentially improve the long-term management of chronic insomnia by leading to sustained improvements in both sleep and associated daytime distress.
This study examined a subgroup of participants who completed a stage I treatment-development study that followed the guidelines for developing behavior treatments. Participants included adults aged between 18 and 65 years who met research diagnostic criteria for psychophysiological insomnia. The six-week group intervention consisted of an integration of the mindfulness training and exercises from the mindfulness-based stress reduction program and group cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. This intervention emphasized on alleviating the nocturnal symptoms of insomnia and decreasing emotional and physiological arousal (e.g., coping with sleep-related distress). Participants were instructed to engage in meditation practice between sessions for at least 30 minutes per day, five days per week. The second half of the session was spent discussing behavioral changes focusing on nocturnal symptoms (sleep restriction, stimulus control, sleep education, and sleep hygiene) that are taught in most) that are taught in most cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia treatment packages.
Participants completed one week of sleep and meditation diaries and questionnaire related to mindfulness, sleep, and sleep-related distress, including the Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale, the Glasgow Sleep Effort including the Pre-Sleep Arousal, the Glasgow Sleep Effort Scale, the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills, and the Insomnia Episode Questionnaire. Participants who reported at least one insomnia episode (≥1 month) during the follow-up period had higher scores on the Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale (P
Ong, J. C., Shapiro, S. L., & Manber, R. (2008). Combining mindfulness meditation with cognitive-behavior therapy for insomnia: a treatment-development study. Behavior therapy, 39(2), 171-182.
Terms: Insomnia, Cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep-related distress, Mindfulness mediation, mindfulness-based stress reduction, Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale, the Glasgow Sleep Effort including the Pre-Sleep Arousal, the Glasgow Sleep Effort Scale, the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills, and the Insomnia Episode Questionnaire.