Psychology 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Heart Rate, Mydriasis, Narcolepsy

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

Why do we sleep: restorative function. After 72 hours of no sleep people are: Irritability: having attention lapse, cannot function well, but there is very little effect on task performance, evolutionary benefit. Back in prehistoric times, going out at night would make you in trouble of being attacked by beasts: so people who slept in nice dark caves, survived, learning and memory. Rem deprived subjects show reduced ability to retain new information: mood adjustment. Speed of cycling into rem correlated with positive mood on following day. Depressed individuals tend to cycle into rem very quickly. Perhaps this helps improve mood in some fashion. Sleep disorders: about 15% of adults complain. Sleep like 5 hours, but expect 8 hours like other people: situational insomnia. Possibly a circadian rhythm problem: thermoregultion problem. Activation remains high and normal sleep cycle fails to develop: sleep apnea. Normal but people with disorder do not start breathing again unless they wake up.