Sleep Cycles During A Super Blood Moon

Living in a dorm consisting of mostly athletic girls, my sleep cycle is usually interrupted more than once. Maybe it has something to do with the super blood moon that occurred last night, but those girls were crazy. Every time I turned around, there was something being dropped, a girl laughing or yelling, or someone talking about their love life loud enough to wake me up. The walls are paper thin and talking about why your mom made you mad at 1 in the morning is something I advise against, mainly because my 8am class demands I be there and preferably in a happy, ready-to-seize-the-day type of mood. Which rarely happens anyways. Hopefully tonight everyone will have calmed down and I can get some decent sleep without being interrupted.

Living The American Dream

I found the article titled "Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: America’s Misguided Culture of Overwork."  to be quite fascinating. (Link here.) When reading this, I was again reminded of the busy American lifestyle of "Go! Go! Go!" and how European countries preform at a relatively slower pace than us. The author compared the United States to Germany and there were some pretty surprising results. The United States works an average of nine extra 40-hour work weeks compared to Germany, but Germany beats us at productivity rates. Many believe it is the mandatory vacation that Germany provides, and also the free education and childcare. Mandated vacation means mandated sleep and social time. (I'm all for free education and will gladly accept!) However, the truth behind living the American dream, white picket fence included, may also come with a fine print: a 40-hour work week, less time with family and friends, more stress and definitely less sleep. Is this something America can change before its too late?


Jung, Alex. "“Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?”: America’s Misguided Culture of
        Overwork." Saloncom RSS. Salon.com, 25 Aug. 2010. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.

Blog Eight

My favorite article this week was "Keeping up is getting us down" (Link Here). Considering I've had my fair share of work experience, especially in fast food, I know the burden that lack of sick days can cause. Even more so now that I can see the relation between lack of sleep and the effect it has on my personal ability to relax and sleep. In the article it talks about how America is the "only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation." Take notice of that word "only." " I was shocked, but also expected it. I have family who have traveled across the globe in various countries and one thing they told me was that in other countries, especially European countries, everything is a much slower paced compared to that in the United States. Our idea of "Go, go, go!" is why we can't relax, why we can't sleep, and why we can't take care of ourselves.


Citation: 15, July. "Keeping up Is Getting Us down." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 15 July
                         2007. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.

Coveted Zzz's (Blog Seven)

My roommate and I recently rearranged our room, and the past few days I've been trying to adjust to the new location of my bed. This may or may not be the reason I haven't slept much lately. Maybe its the amount of stress I'm under due to the fact that I failed my World Civ exam this past week (Tutors anyone?). I usually cannot sleep with any kind of sounds or light, however, last night I was so tired I fell asleep while listening to my favorite Pandora station. Sleep debt kicked my butt. But as you can tell by the following sleep tracking for last night, even though my music relaxed me enough to sleep, it couldn't keep me asleep. I'm reminded of the video we watched where the Sleep Study Group played noises just in time to keep the young man being studied in a constant light sleep cycle. Now, I know the feeling, except I had to wake up and attend an 8am class and preform educationally, which is not a great combination.

Blog Six

{NOTE: Citation will be provided for the article- check back for update}

The article that discussed shrinking brains striked my interest. Find that link here. The article says: "Studies have shown poor sleep can cause protein buildup in the brain that attacks brain cells. So we're still trying to put the puzzle together," (Poor Sleep Pattern). The fact that our body will begin to "attack" our own brain cells is an intense thing to consider. I immediately think of college students attempting to prepare for an exam or studying to learn, but when they receive poor sleep, their brain attacks itself and ultimately it's pointless considering the type of war going on inside their head.

Citation:

"Poor Sleep Pattern May Shrink Brain: Study." Presstv.com. Press Tv, 07 Sept. 2014. Web. 15
         Sept. 2015.

Blog Five

This weekend was peaceful and full of sleep. I left early Friday and headed for Dallas. I fell asleep twice during the road trip (don't worry I wasn't driving) which I believe was due to my lack of sleep this previous week. I stayed at my aunt Rosie's house and climbed into to bed, but soon realized because I was in a different environment that it was difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. Here's a chart of my sleep Saturday night in Dallas. Ignore the little icon for the alarm. Jawbone UP Move assumes when I suddenly jerk out of my sleep cycle it's due to an alarm, however this was not the case.

Stress Behind the Textbook & How It May Prevent Sleep (Blog Four)

   In an article by the Daily Messenger, titled "Our view: Our students need more sleep for health, safety, academics" (Here's that link). The author talks of how the CDC is attempting to convince schools to start school anytime after 8:30am since most students' natural body clocks may prevent them from falling asleep before 11pm the night before, even without a cell phone or any other distraction keeping them up at night. According to our studies in class, adolescents should receive about 11hours of sleep and if their body clocks aren't allowing them to fall asleep before 11pm, and they are waking up on average around 6 or 7 in the morning for classes, that means many of these students are only receiving 7 hours of sleep. Imagine how much better the kids would preform in school given the chance to receive the amount of sleep their brains/bodies actually need.

"Our View: Our Students Need More Sleep for Health, Safety, Academics." Daily Messenger. N.p., 16 Aug. 2015. Web. 7 Sept. 2015.

Sleeping 101 (Blog Three)

Last night's sleep was kind of amazing. I didn't fall asleep until 1am and I woke up at 9am, but I woke up feeling energetic and amped up. I have found that only 7-8 hours of sleep does wonders for me. Maybe my quality of sleep also had something to do with the fact that I've been using a lot more energy throughout the day than I have been previously. Is there a possible link between sleep and how active you are during the day? Just to give you a good idea of what my day looked like in terms of sleep, here's a chart & some supporting numbers. As you can see, the light blue stands for the time I spend in light sleep, dark blue is time I spend in deep sleep, orange is the time I spend awake and hopefully you can see the small sun-like symbol that represents the time of the sunrise.

(Credit to: Jawbone UP Move & it's app for helping provide me with my stats for the night. You can find the app in the App Store if you search "Jawbone", however, you'll need a Jawbone tracker to login to the app itself.) 

-Keep dreaming, Audriana Matsler.

Blog Two -- restructuring memories & more

On Page 52 of Steven W. Lockley & Russell G. Foster's book, Sleep: A Very Short Introduction, there is a very short paragraph on animal and human studies on what is now called "sleep-dependent memory processing." The paragraph explains that if animals or humans are sleep deprived we are less likely to remember being shown a new task or learning something new. Our brains during sleep reconstruct our memories and allow us to remember them longer. "The chance of gaining insight is almost three times higher if the individual is allowed to sleep, and some tasks are never learned if sleep is restricted the night after learning" (Sleep, 52). I found this important because it's going to highly discourage me from pulling an all-nighter during exam week...maybe.

Until next time, 

Audri Matsler.