process analysis essay

Trishia Domingo
Kenneth Kerr
EN101-5
27 October 2010

Good Night, Good Night

Sleep - that is all one may think of after a hard day of work. One’s body had been running around all day and was finally able to return to his home after an exceptionally tiring day. His mind had been drifting off due to exhaustion. Sleep is something that is very important to human beings. In order to function properly, the body needs to rest so it can recover from a long day and generate more cells in order for survival. There are two kinds of sleep: REM, which stands for rapid eye movement, and non-REM sleep, which has four stages in itself, with the first stage called Light Sleep, the second stage Sleep Spindles, and the third and fourth Delta Waves (Fonseca).

A person goes through four stages of non-REM sleep before they enter the REM period, which occurs about every ninety minutes throughout the night (Fonseca). One may recall a time when he thought he was just closing his eyes to rest, but is abruptly woken up by the sound of a ruler hitting his desk or the booming voice of his professor. This person has just undergone stage one sleep, in which if they are awoken, people will not know that they were just asleep. Stage One sleep, also called Light Sleep happens when theta wave activity increases and alpha waves fade away (Fonseca). Another strange occurrence is hypnic myoclonia, more commonly known as a hypnic jerk, that takes place when one feels as if he is falling, which causes a sudden muscle contraction (“Stages of Sleep”).

                The second stage that someone goes through during the non-REM stage has sleep spindles, where eye movements stop and brain waves become larger (“An Intro to Sleep”).  Sleep spindles are a pattern of EEG waves, in which the heart rate slows, and breathing becomes more shallow and irregular, lasting only a second or two (Fonseca). When awakened during this period of the sleep cycle, persons will be aware that they have been sleeping, since approximately 45% of non-REM sleep is spent in Stage 2 (“An Intro to Sleep”).

                Stages three and four of one’s sleep cycle are when delta waves start to roll in. The slowest and largest waves make their appearance during stage three of the sleep cycle, and these delta waves make up approximately twenty to fifty percent of the brain wave pattern (Fonseca). Once delta waves can be accounted for over fifty percent of total brain activity, a person can be said to have entered stage four sleep. For example, someone who has been sleeping for about an hour may have entered stage four of sleep, and once he has been awoken he may feel irritable and a bit disoriented for a few minutes. A person who is in either stage three or stage four of sleep is harder to wake than someone who is only in stage one or two, because the brain produces elta waves much quicker by the time he has shifted into stage four (“An Intro to Sleep”).

                Once a person has undergone stages one through four of non-REM sleep, the next stage is REM sleep, in which the eyes move rapidly, typically meaning that the person is experiencing a dream. People usually spend more time in NREM deep sleep after a physically demanding day, compared to an increased time in REM sleep after an emotionally demanding day (Fonseca). This may be the reason why people tend to experience dreams after a significant event has happened in their life such as being traumatized somehow, loss of a loved one or a job, etc. Some characteristics that distinguish REM from non-REM sleep stages are periodic eyelid fluttering, muscle paralysis, irregular breathing, body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure (“An Intro to Sleep”). It is thought that perhaps while in REM sleep, dreams are a way of dealing with the stresses and tensions of the day, and physical activity demands more time for recovery of the body, which is where NREM sleep comes into play (Fonseca).

                Everyone needs sleep in order to function properly. Moderate sleep loss may not seem like a huge issue, however sleep deprivation can lead to concentration problems and the inability to do simple tasks, as well as disrupting the normal sleep-wake cycle (Fonseca). The amount of sleep that needed is different with each individual, but it is imperative that one gets at least six hours in order to function well enough to do mundane tasks. If one were to go many nights without any sleep, he may drift into microsleeps, which are brief side-steps into sleep that lasts only a few seconds. Microsleep periods are observably responsible for a lot of car accidents that occur when drivers haven’t had sufficient sleep. (Fonseca).