The human body has a pretty accurate even in total light/ dark conditions. This is why you experience when traveling across time zones and why the best treatment is to expose yourself to as many as possible (including natural light and food). Consistent of sleep cycles can result in dramatic health effects, including decreased cognitive abilities, immune system functioning, and response times, as well as increased irritation, blood pressure, and risk for disease. These effects are difficult to overcome as we never really make up all of our sleep .
When we do get extra sleep, our brains spend most of that time in the REM ( ) stage of sleep. This preference is called REM rebound and suggests that this is the most important stage of sleep. The other stages of sleep are numbered, with higher numbered stages indicating levels of sleep. As our brains progress through the stages, our change, which results in stage-specific behaviors. The most interesting of the stage-specific behaviors originate in stage 4 and issues here are called sleep disorders (i.e. bedwetting, sleep walking, and night terrors). These disorders are not at all linked to dreaming behavior because dreams occur during the REM stage, throughout which your body releases a hormone that creates a near-total of the skeletal muscles.
Other sleep disorders include , defined by persistent problems with falling and staying asleep, , characterized by attacks of overwhelming sleepiness, and sleep . People diagnosed with this final disorder have multiple episodes throughout the night in which they stop . Cumulatively, this leads to a significant amount of oxygen deprivation in the brain and many downstream effects. Patients often receive this diagnosis after reporting that they sleep all the time, but never feel (because the episodes prevent them from reaching all of the sleep stages). Both prescribed medications and other can exacerbate sleep disorders because they further disrupt the body’s natural rhythms. Health Psychologists, then, are well-equipped to improve sleep health through their work on habit change and their integration of bio-psycho-and socioemotional factors.