A matter of sleep
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Sleep and Its Increasing Importance in Our Mental Health
From the blog:
Anxiety and Stress Management
Friday, August 10, 2007
Our society does not have an adequate understanding of sleep and the many aspects of our life which are affected by a lack of sleep. Many years ago, I had the pleasure of working with some of the best-known sleep researchers in the world and I learned, first-hand, how important sleep was. I even met one of the truly outstanding researchers in the sleep field, Dr. William C. Dement of Stanford University. Dr. Dement is now the Chairman of the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research. Dr. Dement, in fact, was one of the first people to talk about "sleep debt" and how it hurts us.

We know that sleepy drivers probably cause more traffic accidents and deaths than any other drivers on the road. While there are a few devices meant to keep these drivers alert, nothing beats a good night's sleep and this has been tested out in studies done with over-the-road truck drivers and airline pilots. I'm sure they've even done work with air traffic control personnel. But does lack of sleep affect us in ways other than our ability to perform complex tasks? It seems it does.

In a study which began in 1984 with 25,000 Norwegian adults, researchers found that chronic insomnia or lack of sleep led to an increased likelihood of suffering from both depression and anxiety and developing a disorder of either one or both.

We know that insomnia is associated with depression, normally, and that chronic anxiety can also lead to sleep problems, but here we have something that is pointing to the reverse; sleep disorders resulting in anxiety and depression.

You can read the report for yourself in the journal, Sleep.

Related Topics:
Sleep Deprivation Blurs Moral Judgment
Poor Sleep Hurts Job Satisfaction
Technorati Tags: sleep, depression, anxiety, insomnia, health and wellness
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From the blog:
Anxiety and Stress Management
Pat Farrell, PhD -- WebMD Medical Blogs

Sleep Deprivation Blurs Moral Judgment
Best to Sleep Before Tackling a Personal Dilemma, Study Suggests
By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical NewsReviewed by Louise Chang, MDMarch 2, 2007 -- Facing a personal dilemma? Don't stay up all night mulling it over; sleep deprivation may cloud your moral judgment.

That's according to a U.S. Army study on sleep deprivation and moral judgment.

The study comes from Maj. William Killgore, PhD, and colleagues at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland.

They studied 26 healthy, active-duty military personnel asked to deal with fictional dilemmas before and after staying awake for 53 consecutive hours.

When sleep deprived, participants were slower to judge emotional, personal dilemmas; some also wavered in their judgments when sleep deprived.

"Most of us are confronted with moral dilemmas nearly every day, although the majority of these choices are minor and of little consequence," Killgore says in an American Academy of Sleep Medicine news release.

"Our results simply suggest that when sleep deprived, individuals appear to be ... slower in their deliberations about moral personal dilemmas," says Killgore.

The study appears in the journal Sleep.

Facing Dilemmas
Study participants included 21 men and five women. They were 20-35 years old (average age: 25).

First, participants took an emotional intelligence test. Emotionally intelligent people are aware of their emotions and the emotions of others, and they're good at using that information to shape their decisions and behavior, Killgore's team notes.

Next, participants read 30 dilemmas. Each dilemma ended with a solution that participants had to judge as appropriate or inappropriate.

The dilemmas were either nonmoral, moral but impersonal, or moral and personal.

The nonmoral dilemmas presented a solution that wouldn't seriously hurt anyone.

The moral impersonal dilemmas presented a solution that would redirect inevitable harm from one group to another, without requiring the participant to directly inflict harm.

The moral personal dilemmas presented a solution that forced the participant to directly inflict serious bodily harm or death on someone in order to help save someone else.

The dilemmas were fictional; participants didn't actually face the situations in real life.

When the researchers timed participants as they judged the dilemmas, they found judgment times were similar for each type of dilemma.

Sleepless for 53 Hours
Emotional Intelligence
In addition, participants with high scores on the emotional intelligence test weren't any slower in judging the moral personal dilemmas when sleep deprived.

They also judged these dilemmas the same way before and after sleep deprivation.

However, participants with average or low emotional intelligence tended to waver in their judgments on the moral personal dilemmas. Specifically, they became more lenient, judging solutions they had considered "inappropriate" before sleep deprivation as "appropriate" when sleep deprived.

Sleep deprivation may affect certain brain areas, and people with high levels of emotional intelligence may be less affected by that, the researchers suggest.

Judgment Call
Killgore's team stresses that the findings don't prove sleep deprivation leads to poor moral judgment.

"Whether these judgments were morally 'right' or 'wrong' in any absolute sense was not addressed," the researchers write.

Caffeine didn't affect the results, the researchers write.

It's not clear whether the findings apply to civilians, Killgore and his colleagues note.
SOURCES: Killgore, W. Sleep, March 1, 2007; vol 30: pp 345-352. News release, American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
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My former teacher said food is the food for the brain , indeed.!!

Sticking with friends invitation in conference room at yahoo, website updates, homework from class, duty, housekeeping,log-in ( slow server interference ), cook for gal n football for guyz, is there an ample time to sleep for us especialy the last resort - most interesting once must browse site " Sajha" , do we had enough time to sleep actualy?As my good friend say, there is no rest in USA too.... how`s that?