The Secrets of Sleep

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/05/sleep/max-text

The Secrets of Sleep

This National Geographic article examines sleep and how important sleep is to our everyday lives. The article goes on to describe types of insomnia; from a fatal form to the less dangerous type caused by worry or guilt. What the article makes very clear is that without sleep we die, our brains do not process information properly, and we become a danger to ourselves and others
The first example in the article looks at a family suffering from Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI). “This condition is very rare and occurs in approximately 40 families worldwide” (Max, 2010). Individuals who are genetically predisposed to this disorder can be tested for it but, unfortunately, there is no treatment and no cure. Researchers don’t really know how the disease works saying; “…in a patient with FFI, malformed proteins called prions attack the sufferer’s thalamus, a structure deep in the brain, and that a damaged thalamus interferes with sleep. But they don’t know why this happens or how to stop it or ease its brutal symptoms” (Max, 2010). The saddest thing about FFI is it appears when the patient is in their 50’s and is always fatal.
The article further discusses how sleep is studied; primarily in North America. It looks at a variety of sleep studies that have been conducted by researchers. This has allowed researchers to classify insomnia by its degree of seriousness. They talk about Narcolepsy; where patients fall into REM sleep without warning (for example; River Phoenix’s character in My Own Private Idaho). However, with this disorder they have found that those who have it also experience difficulty sleeping normally. True insomniacs are considered those who have sleep apnea; where an individual will stop breathing periodically throughout the night. As a result the person’s sleep will be interrupted over and over as the author states; “when the brain realizes it isn’t getting any oxygen it sends an emergency signal to the body to wake up. The sleeper awakens, takes a breath, the brain is replenished, and sleep returns. A night’s sleep for the apnea sufferer turns out to really be a hundred micronaps” (Max, 2010). The studies that examine these and other sleep disorders use EEG’s to study the brain’s function during sleep.
This article was very interesting for me to read. I was fascinated by how a lack of sleep is actually fatal. The studies as they were presented seem to be done well and I do not believe I would change them at all. The article opened my mind up to the role sleep, or lack of sleep plays on things in my own life.