Talk:Sleep/Archive 1

message: There is already a separate article on sleep deprivation. Some of the information here should probably be moved there, with only a summary left on this page, if anyone is up to the job. (20 November 2005)
:Stating that "The amount of sleep deprivation that leads to death in humans is unknown" is a slightly misleading statement. If it is unknown, then it is also possible that it cannot lead to death (though I don't believe this myself although I do think the limit is probably extreme). I propose the language be modified to: "It is unknown whether sleep deprivation can lead to death in humans." 128.113.200.207 22:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...or perhaps better, "It has not been proven that sleep deprivation leads to death in humans."Sfahey 22:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That the amount that is needed to result in death is unknown does not mean it's possible that it doesn't lead to death. It just varies depending upon the health of the individual, what he's eating, doing, his environment, and so on. Unlike other diseases where you can gather mass statistics on average death times because they are incurable, sleep deprivation is easily cured by sleep, and I doubt any scientific trials have been done. The only cases I can see death by sleep occuring are torture (no records), or outside of the confines of medical treatment (someone on their own who stops sleeping) in which case pinpointing the amount is vague and difficult. Tyciol 06:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sleep deprivation

message: "The increasing prevalence of sleep disorders is likely a function . . . of more sophisticated diagnostic tests . . ."
:Do you really mean that the better the tests the larger the proportion of diseased people? Please, replace "sleep" for "avian flu": is the prevalence dependent on how sophisticated are the tests for the virus?Jclerman 16:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  <b>prevalence of sleep disorders</b> 

message: ==="While not used in hospitals in the United States, it seems it is commonly used in Germany and Switzerland." ===
Please give a peer-reviewed verifiable source for this statement. The one referred to (in German) seems to be a personal opinion, i.e., without any reference and without a traceable author. Jclerman 17:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please, don't give up your standards, unless your statements are proven otherwise on basis of verifiable and reliable sources. Today "user 80.129.140.252" has indicated in an edit to the article: "(→Notes - german 'RR' is Riva-Rocci (method of measuring blood pressure, used as synonym with blood pressure), not respiratory resistance!)". This loss in translation is verifiable by a web search. Such a search shows two kind of articles: (a) German articles in which "RR-Abfalls" is measured in "mmHg", (b) English articles propagated "virus-like" by many commercial sites which copied the Wikipedia article with the implied "translation" of respiratory rate. Jclerman 20:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The word, of course, is "soporific". When I find a misspelling, I simply correct it. The intent of the admittedly ambiguous sentence I believe referred to caffeine being of benefit to the elderly because THEY have an increased incidence of sleep apnea. This ambiguity has also been restated. Sfahey 23:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Today, "user 80.129.140.252" has indicated in an edit to the article: "(→Notes - german 'RR' is Riva-Rocci (method of measuring blood pressure, used as synonym with blood pressure, not respiratory resistance!))". See result of a web search above. Jclerman 20:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: CAFFEINE statement

message: Please give a peer-reviewed verifiable source for this statement. The one referred to (in German) seems to be a personal opinion, i.e., without any reference and without a traceable author. Jclerman 17:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please, don't give up your standards, unless your statements are proven otherwise on basis of verifiable and reliable sources. Today "user 80.129.140.252" has indicated in an edit to the article: "(→Notes - german 'RR' is Riva-Rocci (method of measuring blood pressure, used as synonym with blood pressure), not respiratory resistance!)". This loss in translation is verifiable by a web search. Such a search shows two kind of articles: (a) German articles in which "RR-Abfalls" is measured in "mmHg", (b) English articles propagated "virus-like" by many commercial sites which copied the Wikipedia article with the implied "translation" of respiratory rate. Jclerman 20:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The word, of course, is "soporific". When I find a misspelling, I simply correct it. The intent of the admittedly ambiguous sentence I believe referred to caffeine being of benefit to the elderly because THEY have an increased incidence of sleep apnea. This ambiguity has also been restated. Sfahey 23:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Today, "user 80.129.140.252" has indicated in an edit to the article: "(→Notes - german 'RR' is Riva-Rocci (method of measuring blood pressure, used as synonym with blood pressure, not respiratory resistance!))". See result of a web search above. Jclerman 20:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "While not used in hospitals in the United States, it seems it is commonly used in Germany and Switzerland." 

message: The beginning of this page is very problematic. This needs a lot of work...I made a few changes regarding sleep deprivation...and cleaned up the rest a bit... but I am debating on doing a complete rewrite. Equating sleep with this anabolism hypothesis is not the only supported heuristic model of sleep. This definition should include more theories regarding the "function" of sleep... as opposed to misleading the reader...which is what I believe this article does in some cases. 
As a sleep researcher... I feel the need to correct this. MrSandman
This equation or similarity if frequently stressed in the article of June 2006, but it simplifies what's going on and might lead to some wrong conclusions. For example, a reader might think that we are like a battery, recharging during the night and only using energy during the day. But what do you think happens after breakfast - anabolism of course. Your body is storing some of the nutrients you just ate for later use. I agree with Jfdwolff below. This simple equation of sleep = anabolism should be qualified or deleted. jasu
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To Larry Sanger: You are trying to be a guardian of the neutral point of view, but on the way you risk being a roadblock on the way towards education. By adding "Researchers do not know what is the role of sleep", you inserted a blatant fallacy into this text. I could forgive a random surfer or visitor. But it is Larry Sanger who should stand for integrity and progressive nature of Wikipedia. Who does not know the role of sleep? Vertes? If you said "Researchers do not know all the function of sleep" you might be closer to the truth because there are many in the research community who still push on with some of their own theories. If a simple experiment: learn the Towers of Hanoi, get sleep or do not get sleep, check the performance, clearly indicates deficit in procedural learning for sleep deprived, no reasonable person would question the role of sleep in learning. Now multiply it by dozens of experiments, hundreds of researchers, hundreds of papers, ... do you still have doubts. Naturally, go on the net search and you will find thousands of pages with hundreds of theories, but that's not what should make up your mind. Imagine searching the net about the theory of evolution in the 1860s (the most valuable findings in sleep&learning research date to late 1980s and the 1990s). This time I apologize for inevitably harsh words: you are not helping Wikipedia with this. If you are not sure about some texts, put your doubts in Talk or sign in under a different name! -- Piotr Wozniak
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I think the wording could be better--I agree with Piotr that it is well established that consolidation of memory occurs during sleep, but that by no means should elevate this simple fact to a "purpose".  I'll change the text to something I think better reflects current knowledge; feel free to edit.  --LDC
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Piotr, making an edit that requires you to add essential text to your article is not a roadblock, it's one of the most important kinds of edits one can make, for purposes of keeping people honest.  Now, last I heard, it was an enormous mystery to sleep researchers what the purpose of sleep is, though there were a number of theories.  I am willing to concede that in the intervening years (ten?), researchers have concluded that sleep does have at least one specific, well-demonstrated function; but in that case, it would be a good idea to say who the (main) researchers are who have demonstrated this, how it was demonstrated, and so forth--all the details you (finally and helpfully) mention above.  As you can see, I stand behind this particular edit 100%.  Now I hope that you will edit the article and enlighten us in a way that will shame me into silence.  I'll be watching. --LMS
**Naturally, shaming Larry into silence would be a very lowly purpose. I put some links to popular scientific articles at sleep and learning. If they survive future edits, any reasonable person can draw his or her own conclusions about the role of sleep (don't we all pause why should we waste 1/3 of our lives on a seemingly useless state of unawareness and vulnerability? -- the greatest minds in the research community have a very simple answer to that: optimizing memory storage in condition of information excess). If anyone is interested in my own popular scientific summary and practical applications of knowledge about sleep, see: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm. I will try to explain why I do not take on the challenge of arguing my case at Piotr Wozniak -- Piotr Wozniak
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Not just humans sleep - other mammals certainly do and other animals have similar rest states. Anyone want to tackle including these.   -rmhermen
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According to what I've read in body-building literature, sleep is necessary for muscle growth and repair.  Sleep probably serves numerous other physical purposes, which should be included in the article. - TS
**Why should we "disconnect" the brain in order to "regenerate" muscle? It is like shutting down the government in order to fix a highway. If muscle impulsation had to be cut off, it could have been done by "paralysis" at the level of the medulla oblongata. If you mean GH, it can also be released without getting "dumb" for 8 hours. You can rest your muscles ok without getting any sleep. The belief that sleep is needed for muscle regenration comes from the fact that the organisms puts various defense mechanisms against sleep deprivation that would slow down registering new generalized and non-interfering memories to a crawl. Those defenses provide for a breakdown of the endocrine anabolic regulation which ulimately leads to "feeling awful" and "unrefreshed" and "broken down" -- Piotr Wozniak
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But sleep doesn't only "disconnect" the brain--it also involves physical immobility.  It is quite likely true that physical regeneration of muscle is also an important use of sleep.  I'm not sure it even makes sense to speak of "purpose" when talking about biological systems--that implies a telos, and biological systems aren't like that.  Human-designed things have purpose: we put wings on a plane in order to provide lift.  But evolved things are different; things often have many different and unrelated uses.  Things that first appeared for one use (like jawbones) often evolve into something completely different (impedance-matching sound conductors).  Writing about the role of sleep in learning is a worthy cause; but calling it "the purpose" of sleep is almost certainly wrong.  --LDC
*You can easily verify the evolutionary purpose of sleep by removing the demand for its individual functions. You bet, once you do not need to rewire your neural network, you will lose the need to lose consciousness. And the muscular system will help itself. As I said earlier, the "disconnect" (if indeed needed) can happen at a lower level. Would you argue that we cannot say "the role of heart is pumping the blood" only because there are other regulatory benefits of its action? -- Piotr Wozniak (note that immobility is also a result of the disconnect; not to let the muscles rest but to prevent you from injuring yourself while motor centers are in action in REM)
:The first sentence above is quite demonstrably false, since no such experiment is even possible with current technology.  No matter how much you protest that you know "the purpose" of sleep (and by the way, I assume you do understand that in English this implies the only purpose) you have not, and cannot, do the experiments necessary to verify that claim, so it is irresponsible and unscientific to make it.  The brain is millions of times more complex than present science is even capable of investigating, and all sweeping claims about its major functions are unverified theories at this point.  Even the very detailed stuff we think we know about language and perception from the likes of Chomsky, Pinker, and others is not scientifically verifiable yet.  Your articles are good stuff, and would be appropriate here in one of two ways: either as they are now, clearly marked as commentary, or else modified to hedge the wild unsubstantiated claims.  --LDC
Teleonomy is a concept in biology that deals with the apparent goal-directedness of biological systems.  From a teleonomic perspective it is perfectly correct to speak of purposes in biology.  See http://www.freedomsnest.com/mayr_biophil.html for more. - TS
Yes, I suppose that's as rational as speaking of "selfish genes", as long as it's clear that these are specialized uses of the words.  My remaining objection, then, is to speaking of "the purpose" rather than "one purpose".  --LDC
Sleep does not mean physical immobility as stated above. Only in REM sleep does the inhibition of striated muscle occur, and even then there are frequent bodily movements in REM sleep. Bodily movements are common in all other sleep stages. As a technologist in a Sleep Disorders Center, I have watched thousands of sleep studies and have yet to see anyone sleep without moving. A common example of motor activity in sleep, accessible to those who are not sleep technologists - sleepwalking. --rpsgt244
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Even though bed is relevant to sleep, writing about the fact that we sleep in bed in the sleep entry is as relevant as explaining that the sky is blue in the NASA entry. Naturally, this could change if this was Kidipedia for our young ones, but Wikipedia wants to focus on providing concise encyclopedic information (which can naturally be extended by commentary entries such as "ways of spending the night" where longer explanations or even a scientific discourse of sleeping positions could be placed). 62.21..
:Sleep is the process in which humans and other animals periodically rest, unconscious and unaware of the surrounding world. Sleep occurs cyclically, roughly every 24 hours is equally obvious. It is often good to include those texts for completeness sake. The blueness of the sky is also an interesting phenomenon that should be explained somewhere (but not in the NASA entry). - Patrick 13:30 20 May 2003 (UTC)
p.s. it is not true that circadian cycle lasts 24.3 hours. It may last 23 hours or 27 hours depending on the individual! Hence the concept of ASPS and DSPS. 62.21..
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I have no idea what this means, so I'm moving it here.
==Facts== *Often times, the lips are most responsive when met with another pair of lips. This will sometimes cause the sleeper to jolt suddenly, as maybe a defense system.
-Montrealais
:Lol. I think they mean a certain cartoon character.--Fangz 00:38, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wake/sleep = catabolic/anabolic is problematic 

message: Sometimes we use the phrase "too much sleep", when we sleep for, say, 15 hours (following serious sleep deprivation, of course) and wake up with a monstrous headache. But is there really such a thing as too much sleep? --Furrykef 00:20, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The too much sleep idea is supposed to be when a person distorts their sleep cycle, thus waking in the middle of a cycle, throwing off the whole process. 70.111.251.203 13:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too much sleep? 

message: Surely this article should have something on sleep as in "a crust of dried tears or mucus normally forming around the inner rim of the eye during sleep." 
-- Livajo 23:12, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly agree - came looking for it earlier but couldn't find it.  Not sure how to work it into the article, though.  violet/riga (t) 18:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other definitions 

message: Can someone mark a citation to this....
::The state of sleep is common to all known life forms, plant and animal.  It is the fundamental metabolic state of life itself.   To ask why organisms sleep is equivalent to asking why organisms live at all.  To understand sleep one must instead ask the correct question: Why do we awaken?  The state of wakefulness is a much different metabolic state; it is a catabolic state, hence the organism can only survive for a certain amount of time before it must return to the anabolic state, otherwise it will die. Roadrunner 03:38, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cite 

message: Can the contributor who added "As of 2004, it is as yet unclear exactly what the mechanism which causes death in rats" check out any updates the last year. Jay 14:19, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do. JFW | T@lk 23:05, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Update to 2005 ?

message: I removed a completely misquoted paragraph about David Dinges ("thingy" in Dutch, incidentally) that suggested that gene therapy will decrease sleep needs. Dinges did not actually study short-sleepers himself, at least not recently. He's just talking as experts do, answering eager questions from journalists looking for a scoop. Yes, in theory you could insert a gene that would limit sleep needs. And therefore? For goodness' sake, let's leave this nonsense out of Wikipedia. JFW | T@lk 10:35, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough. Paranoid 11:09, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dinges 

message: I have heard that some public high schools in the U.S. have changed their schedules so that first period starts later, that these changes were in response to studies that indicate that teenagers need more sleep. Where can I read more about this? books? websites? articles? Kingturtle 05:25, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  public schools 

message: The assertion that sleep is common to ALL life forms including plants is only weakly supported by the article.  If anybody knows more about this I'd like to see it spelled out better.  The lead of the article is rather all encompassing and I think such a sweeping statement merits stronger support.  Relevant text below:
Sleep is the fundamental anabolic process common to all life forms, plant and animal. In animals, the sleeping state is characterized by an absolute minimal degree of consciousness and decreased responsiveness to the surrounding world.
Sleep is a dynamic, constructive time of healing and growth for animal organisms. 
...
It may well be that plant organisms exist in a perpetual anabolic (sleep) state. No catabolic (wakened) state has ever been documented for any plant organism and, by definition, plants do not exhibit the characteristics of animal organisms in a wakened state.
-Tobycat 23:42, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Plants?

message: I've removed the reference to dolphins in the introduction, which said that dolphins and sharks don't sleep. I don't really know about sharks (although I have heard indeed that they do not sleep), but it's crazy to say in the introduction that dolphins don't sleep. They sleep with half their brain at a time, and they appear not to have REM sleep, but the references I've looked at agree to call it "sleep".
See for example the Usenet discussion
here, where paragraphs from a paper describing experiments that involved EEG are quoted.
Now, maybe dolphins' doesn't qualify as "sleep" under certain definitions of "sleep", but since it does under other (most?) definitions, it's really POV to state that "dolphins don't sleep period" in the introduction.
LjL 17:23, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dolphin sleep 

message: From the article: "Cattle and sheep are unique in that they can sleep while standing [...]". I seem to recall that horses can sleep while standing, too - can someone confirm or deny that? -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 02:21, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horses 

message: Will sleeping really make you tell truth in states of REM or whenever someone can talk to your subconcious mind? It makes sense in the respect that you are no longer aware of the "truth", so to speak, but you will tell whatever you believe is true, whether or not you say it isn't in real life.
The other half of your mind is uncontrolled, as most of us know, and we can't even access it ourselves without difficulty. So, what are your speculations on this matter?
--CherryT 01:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sleep the Truth?

message: How long usually does it take for a person to get to stage four. And how do u tell if a person is in stage four?
====Stage 4 sleep occupies much of the first third of the night...and an average person can go into stage 4 usually within 10 to 20 minutes after falling asleep. When a person is in stage 4, there breathing is very regular and "calm"...and are difficult to arouse. People also may "sleep talk" during this stage. Stage 4 is very distinct when viewed on with EEG, or Polysomnography..... as indicated by the figures in this article. 
MrSandman 15:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stage 4 ? 

message: In the section "Approaches to sleeping better", I have qualms with the statement: "Milk contains tryptophan, which can help relax the nervous system and induce drowsiness."  While technically true, tryptophan's soporific effects are dependent on the ratio between Trp and the amount of large neutral amino acids (LNAA), because Trp competes with LNAA's for entry into the brain (See , ).  I am not certain if the the protein in milk has a high enough Trp:LNAA ratio to permit Trp uptake into the brain.
A recommendation which may be more scientifically grounded would be to eat some carbohydrates with the milk, which will reduce the levels of competing LNAAs ().  --Uthbrian (talk) 10:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Milk as a sleep aid 

message: # Ha!! We close the window and switch on the air conditioning to attain a cool room! Please don't write statements that apply locally unless you state to which locality they apply. 
# "and, how to do that? ... although this does not affect body temperature." And, in the case of body temperature specify whther you mean core temperature or what? 
[User:Jclerman|Jclerman]] 22:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  " open the window or switch off the heating "

message: 72 degrees F is the ideal temperature for sleep based on the animal literature I am familiar with. Too hot and two cold and you will have less REM sleep. During REM your ability to thermoregulate is diminished..and you will approach ambient temperature. In addition, directly heating the preoptic area of the hypothalamus will induce sleep (NREM), while cooling the pons will induce REM... in other words.. it is a little more complicated than just leaving the window open.. or turing the AC on.
In addition, the milk and tryptophan comment is false... Turkey and Milk do not produce sleepiness due to Tryptophan content.. the Tryptophan then contain is at a level lower than what is needed to produce sleepiness.... this is an "old wives' tail"..... 
MrSandman 02:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 72 degrees

message: I deleted the reference to PGO spikes. The section on sleep stages refers to the characteristics of a traditional EEG (scalp electrodes). PGO spikes are not seen in a traditional EEG. In order to see PGOs, you need to place depth electrodes in the Pons, Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, or Occipital Cortex. Since we do not place depth electrodes in humans, we do not see this in a traditional poly. A reference to PGO's would be good, but would be better suited for the article on REMS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement
MrSandman 15:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: PGO spikes

message: What postion(s) are the best to sleep in? 70.111.251.203 13:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  it depends. When you sleep on your back.. it makes it a little harder for you to breath.. especially if you are overweight. But overall.. it just depends on what is comfortable for you...and what type of surface you are sleeping on. 
MrSandman 16:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sleep Postions 

message: Are children recommended the 8 hours of sleep as well? Seems to me like they need more, especially babies. 70.111.251.203 13:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Babies spend (need) about 15-20 hours per day sleeping (1day old to 3-5 months). We need about 10 to 14 hours of sleep a night until we reach puberty (around 13 years old)...then it tapers off to around 8 hours.. but the amount of time one needs varies between individuals. Before 1 year, babies spend more time in REM sleep (around 50%), compared to adults (15-20%). Within the first few months, a babies sleep cycle is not controlled by a circadian rhythm... they need to eat about every 2 hours, so they sleep a lot, but not for long periods at a time...after 3 to five months, they start sleeping more during the night. It is thought that sleep helps the babies brain develop (especially REM). Severe sleep disruption early can have long lasting consequences. 
Check out the "Theories regarding the function of sleep" section for more detail regarding the importance of REM sleep. 
Newborn	16 to 20 hours per day
3 weeks	16 to 18 hours per day
6 weeks	15 to 16 hours per day
4 months	9 to 12 hours plus two naps (2 to 3 hours each)
6 months	11 hours plus two naps (1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours each)
9 months	11 to 12 hours plus two naps (1 to 2 hours each)
1 year	10 to 11 hours plus two naps (1 to 2 hours each)
18 months	13 hours plus one or two naps (1 to 2 hours each)
2 years	11 to 12 hours plus one nap (2 hours)
3 years	10 to 11 hours plus one nap (2 hours)
4 to 5 years	10 to 12 hours. Usually no nap.
MrSandman 13:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sleep for Children