Why we Sleep - Walker Flashcards
What is the architecture of sleep?
How does short sleep affect cholestrol?
studies have found that short sleep duration will also disrupt the activity of genes regulating cholesterol. In particular, a lack of sleep will cause a drop in high-density lipoproteins (HDLs)—a directional profile that has consistently been linked to cardiovascular disease.IV
Walker, Matthew. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (p. 188). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
What are the proven benefits of a full night of sleep?
AMAZING BREAKTHROUGH! Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes. You’ll even feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious. Are you interested?
Walker, Matthew. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (p. 107). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
What is the pattern of our sleep throughout the night?
In the first half of the night, the vast majority of our ninety-minute cycles are consumed by deep NREM sleep, and very little REM sleep,
Walker, Matthew. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (p. 44). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
What is the function of NREM sleep and REM sleep?
What is the disadvantage of arising 2 hours before your 8 hours of sleep is finished?
A danger resides in this sleep profile wherein NREM dominates early in the night, followed by an REM sleep dominance later in the morning, one of which most of the general public are unaware. Let’s say that you go to bed this evening at midnight. But instead of waking up at eight a.m., getting a full eight hours of sleep, you must wake up at six a.m. because of an early-morning meeting or because you are an athlete whose coach demands early-morning practices. What percent of sleep will you lose? The logical answer is 25 percent, since waking up at six a.m. will lop off two hours of sleep from what would otherwise be a
Is it myth that older adults need less sleep?
Yes, older adults need as much sleep as they do in midlife.
Can exercise help solidify good sleep in the elderly?
Yes
If by the time we reach our eighties sleep efficiency drops to 70 to 80 percent, how much time will you spend awake during an 8 hour period in bed?
1 to 1 and a half hours
How does sleep help you remember things?
before learning it prepares your brain for initially making new memories and after learning to cement those memories and prevent forgetting.
When old people have health problems what additional thing should the general practioner examine as part of the diagnosis?
how well the person is sleeping
Since sleep helps us forget, how can that help us remember better?
However, the capacity to forget can, in certain contexts, be as important as
the need for remembering, both in day-to-day life (e.g., forgetting last week’s parking spot in preference for today’s) and clinically (e.g., in excising painful, disabling memories, or in extinguishing craving in addiction disorders). Moreover, forgetting is not just beneficial to delete stored information we no longer need. It also lowers the brain resources required for retrieving those memories we want to retain, similar to the ease of finding important documents on a neatly organized, clutter-
free desk. In this way, sleep helps you retain everything you need and nothing that you don’t, improving the ease of memory recollection. Said another way, forgetting is the price we pay for remembering.
Walker, Matthew. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (p. 120). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
How does sleep help you learn motor skills?
good. You can only learn how to ride a bike by doing rather than reading. Which is to say by practicing. The same is true for all motor skills, whether you are learning a musical instrument, an athletic sport, a surgical procedure, or how to fly a plane. The term “muscle memory” is a misnomer. Muscles themselves have no such memory: a muscle that is not connected to a brain cannot perform any skilled actions, nor does a muscle store skilled routines. Muscle memory is, in fact, brain memory. Training and strengthening muscles can help you better execute a skilled memory routine. But the routine itself—the memory program—
program—resides firmly and exclusively within the brain. Years before I explored the effects of sleep on fact-based, textbook-like learning, I examined motor skill memory.
Perhaps it was practice, with sleep, that makes perfect?
first. Practice does not make perfect. It is practice, followed by a night of sleep, that leads to perfection.
Walker, Matthew. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (p. 126). Scribner. Kindle Edition.
What does lack of sleep have an impact on?
fast becoming recognized as a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease.
