Consciousness is what we are aware of the feelings,
thoughts, sensations and environments but the consciousness get alter when we
sleep, take medicines, hypnosis and take drugs. Now, it comes as why we need to
sleep? The simple answer is that body and mind both need to restore. There are
two kinds of sleep such as non-rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement. It
has been found from the research that each cycle of sleep is about 5-90
minutes. For the different age group of humans the sleep time is different as
newborn child sleep almost for 20 hours and older people sleep for less than 6
hours. Even though it is know that prolonged wakefulness effects human body
badly. As by the research by Patrick and Gilbert in year 1986 that the
wakefulness for 90 hours continuously causes in decrease in sensory acuity,
motor speed, ability to memorise, and production of visual hallucinations. This
happens because of the not having the proper sleep and that is called as sleep
deprivation. It might be of different kinds such as chronic and acute. There
are many psychological effects on the human body and mind because of this sleep
deprivation. Total and partial deprivation effects human bond and mind in
different ways such as it disturbs the concentration, learning and mood. The
brain activity also changes in wrong side and doesn’t work effectively. Till
today there has not been such kind of neurological study on sleep deprived
individuals. Awakening for a long time will surely affect the human body and
will cause the number of sleep disorders such as Parasomnias where the awake
take place while sleeping like sleepwalking or sleep talking, dyssomnia where
timing, quality and quantity of sleep is impaired.
While sleeping human dream too and that is of
different kinds like REM, NREM and Lucid dreams that depends on the dreamer
while sleeping and the kind of sleep too. For example, let’s take an example as
in year 1964 a 17 years old boy at Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research
Centre in Unites States Naval Hospital at San Diego California who didn’t sleep
for 264 hours continuously and that caused several problems to his body, mind
and vision. This patient was closely observed by Dr. William Dement. According
to Dr. William Dement on first day the boy was okay as he was feeling
refreshing but on second day the boy found that the vision of the boy was
diminishing and he was getting difficulty in opening his eyes correctly while
he was trying to watch a movie and then next day it was found that the boy was
not able watch the television properly. Slowly, on next day he found that his
mood changed and his tongue was also seemed as twisters. On fourth day the body
found significant changes as memory lapse, difficulty in concentrating on the
things, feeling of a tight band around his head, and his vision was like that
he was observing the fog in the street. On fifth day, the boy’s equilibrium was
balance but he caught with intermittent hypnogogic reveries. Slowly, the
blurred vision of the boy for next few days got in to more problem. For the
last 2 days, anything he was hearing seem like foolish to him as he was not
able to memorise the things he heard on the first day. After this the patient finally went for a
sleep and slept for more than 14 hours continuously.
This example signifies about the sleep deprivation
and its effects on the body and mind of the people who don’t take proper sleep.
The healthy boy whose initial blood pressure was 120/180 Hg, pulse rate was 72
and temperature was 36.1 C got significant changes. Even though during the
awaking the pupils of the boy reacted normally but there seemed some
significant movements in his body and mind with the time of awakening. Sleep
deprivation causes number of harmful things to the human body and sometime
causes the fatal diseases too if the sleep deprivation goes on continuous. In
this sleep deprivation initially, there is abnormal behaviour happens but after
some time it goes normal after some days. The most important body part that
affected much is eye and mind. Sleep deprivation increases the psychiatric
difficulties in the body and it take long time to recover than sleep
deprivation is occurs. Because of this the life style and body thinking goes
change and sometime things seem as not perfect because of the lack of
concentration, mood change and memory lapse. Physical and mental conditions get
change with the time if sleep deprivation goes for longer time and no proper
meditation is done. Mediations improve the consciousness of the body and allow
thinking on focused objects. In the above example the sleep deprivation for a
long time may lose the concentration and memory strength and that can be
achieved through the meditation. Mediation is very important in case of having
the sleep deprivation because it reduces the blood pressure and controls the
human emotions.
People use some drugs to control the sleep
deprivation like hypnosis that controls the pain of the body and helps in power
suggestion in thinking, feelings and sensations. The humans who take the drug
occasionally and frequently also get in to the sleep deprivation problem
because the drugs affect the human brain thoroughly and speed up the activity
in the central nervous system. It also changes the behaviour relatively and
stimulates the organism. Conditioning response of the body become weak. In the
17 years boy example, it was observed that the behaviour of the boy got change
after the sleep deprivation for 264 hours and it causes the number of changes
in the boy’s mental and physical activities for a long time. These changes get
reverse in normal conditions after a 6 -8 months of proper mediation and care
of the boy. Thus, the final outcome is that sleep deprivation is not good for
human body and mind.
Comments