The Mystery of Sleep Essays -- Essays Papers

The Mystery of recreation Rest for the body, Activity for the brain Everyone sleeps. While humans sleep, they do not procreate, protect, or nurture their young, gather food, brighten money, write papers, etc. Surely, at least once, most people have wondered why they sleep in spite of these disadvantages. According to Greier (48), it is hard for scientists to answer the patently simple question of what, exactly, sleep is good for. Sleep occupies one-third of humans lives, which seems like a waste of precious time however, no one can sound without sleep. According to Shelton (5), sleepy drivers in the U.S. form approximately 56,000 car accidents every year. Also, Wolfson and Carskadon (875) report interestingly that the students who achieve good grades sleep longer than the students who are struggle or failing in school. Furthermore, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the near meltdown at Three Mile Island, the environmentally disastrous oil cat by the Exxon Valdez, and the loss of the space shuttle Challenger were all caused by people who made mistakes because of too little sleep (Coren 1). Sleep deprivation seems to cause detrimental effects to humans daily lives. Sleep is a state marked by reduced consciousness, diminished activity of the skeletal muscles, and depressed metabolism. Humans normally experience sleep in patterns that follow five observable, progressive stages (stages 0 4) of non-rapid shopping mall movement (NREM) sleep and a separate pattern of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Coren 31). An electrical encephalogram (EEG), devised by Hans Berger in 1919, is used to measure electrical activities of neurons during the stages Stage 0 is not real sleep, but button to bed and preparing for sleep. During stage 1, th... ... (1997) 48-50.Hobson, Allan J. Sleep. New York Scientific American Library, 1995.Meddis, Ray. The Sleep Instinct. Boston Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977.Moreno, Anne. Why We Sleep? Getting a Good Nights Sleep Is Important to You r Health and Also to Your Success in Life. Current Health 2 25.2 (1998) 6-13.Rechtschaffen, Allan. Current Perspectives on the Function of Sleep. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 41.3 (1998) 359-90.Shelton, Deborah L. Sleep-Deprived Drivers cogitate to Highway Carnage American Medical News 38.26 (1995) 5-6.Stampi, Claudio, ed. Why We Nap Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep. By Jurgan Arnoff. Boston Birkhauser, 1992.Wolfson, Amy R., and Mary A. Carskadon. Sleep Schedules and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents. fry Development 69.4 (1998) 875-89.