The Dream of Sleep: A Behavioral Modification

The Dream Of Sleep: A Behavioral Modification

Gregory Ryan

Liberty University

Abstract

The target behavior I have chosen to modify is my sleeping patterns. I have lived on 2-4 hours of sleep a night since my early childhood without incident. For this reason I have never considered my lack of significant sleep an issue that needed correcting. A few times a month I would pass out for 14-16 hours and otherwise function just fine on minimal sleep. It was not until earlier this year that my brain began scattering and I slow began developing concentration and completion issues. My body followed a similar pattern shorty after as I noticed my physical productivity decreasing in ways that were clearly impacting my normal day-to-day life. My mood started becoming erratic shortly after that leading my friends and family to comment on a significant behavioral shift. I chose to see a doctor assuming at the time that my cancer had return only to be diagnosed with “sleep deficiency” instead. That was a week ago today.

The purpose of this paper will be to research my condition, how it has affected others, and outline a treatment plan that maximizes my overall future health. I will begin in basic overview detailing the condition and how it directly affects the mind and body. I will then outline the disruptive effects of sleep deficiency and how they relate to me directly. The second part of this paper will focus on available research and how knowledge of this disorder has progressed within the medical community. Finally, I will use all the information I have learned to plan and execute a treatment method that directly targets my behavioral deficit. All told this paper should help myself and others better understand and cope with the effects of sleep deficiency.

Introduction

The purpose of this research paper is to increase awareness in regard to sleep deficiency and determine a purposeful method of behavioral modification to combat the stated deficit. For the purpose of this paper it should be noted that the participant is 40 year old male who is unmarried and lives alone. On average he has slept around 2-4 hours a night since his early teens and has just recently begun to show signs of extreme sleep deprevation. That amounts to an average of 22-28 hours of sleep a week. According to Orzel-Gryglewska (2010), the imparment rate in average people who commonly sleep 6-8 hours a night begins at 20-25 hours of sleeplessness a week. At that rate study participants had shown negligible signs of behavioral impairments that became significantly more aggressive as the sleep time of the participants decreased. This is jumping the shark a bit thought. To fully understand and identify the symptoms and effects of sleeplessness let us begin first in definition.

Definition & Deficit

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2016), describes sleep deprivation in simple terms of condition that occurs when you are not getting enough sleep. No bells and whistles or calls for therapy attached to the definition. As they later state 7-19 percent of all Americans claim some type of sleep disorder in a calendar year with 50-70 million Americans categorizing their condition as chronic. Sleeping issues are both very common and in most cases do not present any true cause for alarm. Sleep deficiency is stated to be a completely different type of problem with a much broader concept despite holding the same definition. While sleep deprivation commonly does not effect daily activities, sleep deficiency is associated with mental and physical health issues, loss of productivity, memory and motivational loss, risk of personal injury, and even death in the most extreme cases. It is literally the difference between describing the effect of routine food poisoning and anthrax exposure in explanation. The significant point of difference between each definition is defined in terms of exposure length and symptoms.

According to Orzel-Gryglewska (2010), the difference between deprivation and deficiency can be summed up as the difference between missed sleep and getting no sleep at all. Because our bodies function in a 24-hour repeating “body clock” type rhythm the average person has 3-5 REM cycles over the course of an evening. Because REM, or deep sleep (brain rest), doesn’t occur until 70 to 90 minutes into sleep those unconscious for less than 3-5 hours a night typically feel some effect of sleeplessness. That statistic varies with age and is often different between individuals in any age group. Where one person will only need 5 hours, another will have functional issues with under 8 hours of rest. The human bodies physical refractory period (muscular and cell rest) commonly begins between 80-100 minutes after unconsciousness begins. In that case 4-6 hours is the stated low end of sufficient sleeplessness. This lack of rest is referred to as “sleep latency” or the point our bodies begin the rest cycle. Every time that process is disrupted our deterioration process begins.

Now that we have defined the disorder, let us begin to examine the effects that sleep deficiency has on our bodies and minds. According to Mullington, Haack, Toth, Serrador, & Meier-Ewert (2009), while insufficient sleep is commonly associated with attention and performance deficits the effects are much pronounced in terms of sleep deficiencies. Increased blood pressure and cardiovascular issues, impaired glucose tolerance, and heart disease have all been found to significantly increase with people suffering from sleep deficiencies. Weakened immune systems, significant memory loss, a compromised autonomic nervous system, and vascular resistance are among to other issues found to have a direct association with sleep deprivation. It seems that life altering progressive disease and consistent health issues are known problems with any significant length sleep impairment. Which puts the common idea that you cannot die from insomnia into a whole new light. It is not just the lack of sleep that can kill you.

Let us dig into this a bit deeper with a few focused studies.

Research & Discovery

The first study I found set out to map the neurobehavioral dynamics of sleep deficiency. The purpose of which was to chronicle the unique effects partial to severe sleep loss had on both the brain and resulting behaviors. According to Basner, Rao, Goel & Dinges (2013), the neurobehavioral effects of both acute and chronic sleep loss begins with a lapse in sustainable attention, cognitive and psychomotor slowage, memory loss, and reducing latency to sleep. That means that the more time you remain unrested the more your body will naturally fight against sleep. Those issues reflected subjects with an average of 3-7 hours a night over a two week period. Those restricted to 4 hours a night during the same period became accident prone, started displaying cognitive defects, lost alertness, had increasing attention span problems, and lost their ability to maintain ecological validity almost completely. In a two month month process model, each of these effects increased significantly along with risks associated with obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, The study found severe type dynamic changes in physiology and behavior as well as a direct line between recovery and collapse while monitoring EEG waves. Even in the simplest of models behavioral deterioration was a factor.

The next study I examined focused on the sleep deprivation in terms of mood disorders. The purpose of which was to examine if treatment strategies used for sleeplessness could be equally effective if used as anti-depressants. If it has not be noted before there is a direct and commonly link between sleep deprivation and depression in terms of both severe and minor mood alterations. According to Benedetti & Colombo (2011), depressive symptoms were broadly defined with high probabilities of depressive relapse in nearly all subjects that had their 24 hour cycle disrupted. On the first attempt they saw no mood alterations or significant shifts in neurobiological functioning as a result of treatment. At this point they were studying the effects of partial sleep reductions maintained over a 36 hour period with 3-5 two hour awakening bursts. The most common side effects were nothing out of the ordinary and no therapeutic effect was determined.

From the second study forward they began doubling the rates of both sleep and disruption. The more frequent the awakening bursts became the more evident anticipation became resulting in few mood based incidents after recovery sleep. Mood and cognition began noticeably improving in 10-15% of patients. It was not until the 10 days model was introduced that deterioration began to take a noticeable effect. From that point on psychological symptoms began worsening. They added anti-depressants to the 12 day model and found no significant changes. The experiment proved the usefulness of controlled sleep deprivation in terms of depression therapy. Due to increased stressors, the reoccurring prevalence of depressive symptoms, and the unavoidable adverse effects of progressive sleep loss, the increased day models only led to severe depressive replaces and increasing mania. The body does not correct or accumulate itself to lack of sleep after a certain time period has passed. It simply shuts down basic functioning to compensate for the loss of rest.

You may be asking