Biological rhythmns infradian and ultradian Flashcards
infradian
AO3 : individual differences
e.g. individual differnces in the menstrual cycle of women. E.G. range from 23 - 36; not just 28. in teenagers the gap is larger 21-45. Many factors effect this e.g. diet, sleep, excercise, stress.
This may act as confounding variables in synchronisation of MC research, so findings may have occured due to chance. Explains why other studies dont replicate results. Studies may be flawed
infradian
ao3: real world application
treatments for SAD have developed - Light therapy.
Strong light which resets bodies internal clock. Stduies show reduce effects of sad by 80%. May be preffered over antidepressants.
However bright light could cause headaches/ eyestrain. Relapse rate is higher than cbt shown by studies - 46%.
ultraadian
Describe the sleep cycle
repeats every 90 mins
stage 1&2: easliy to wake: brain waves- alpha waves high frequency, short amplitude.
Stage 3&4: deep sleep/SLOW WAVE SLEEP(SWS); brain waves are delta waves - lower frequency, higher aplitude. Difficult to wake up
5/REM sleep: body is paralysed; brain activity resembles an awake person.
Repeats every 90 mins
ultradian
ao3: studies on sleep cycle take place in lab
highly controlled - removed extraneous variables e.g. noise/ temperature that effects sleep
High internal validity.
However ppts often attched to monitors/ machinary to track their waves/rhythmns. Mya be invasive/ lead to them sleeping in way that doesnt reflect ordinary sleep cycle/pattern.
Lack of ecological validity.
ultradian
AO3: individual differnces in sleep stage; variation between people in ultradian research
research - tucker- found large differnces in duration of each sleep stage particulculary 3 and 4. He sugguests that these differnces are biologically determined. This means it may be worth foucsing on these innate bio differnces during investigations into sleep cycle. Makes it difficult to describe ‘normal sleep’ in a meaningful way.
