What are thought to be some of the functions of sleep?

Sleep consists of phases of two types of cat eternal rest, check cockle and REM, with slow wave sleep usually being dominant. Slow wave sleep is characterised by lower muscle tension, body temperature, sprightliness rate, blood pressure and metabolic rate whereas REM sleep stooge feature eye movements, muscle twitches and increase drumhead temperature. Sleep is not exclusive to cosmos, as birds and mammals experience this equivalent type of sleep, whereas fish, reptiles and amphibians go through phases of inactivity.

The importance of sleep can be illustrated through depriving rats of sleep. This is done by waking the rats any(prenominal) time they attempt to sleep, and resulted in increased body temperature, increased metabolic rate and increased appetite. These symptoms show that the rats bodies are works abnormally hard, and after around sixteen days, the rats immune systems entrust fail and they will die. Sleep is also vital to humans and we spend around one third of our lives asleep. Although some passel can survive on very little sleep, e.g., Pearson and Langford (1973) base a seventy-year-old woman who normally slept for only one arcminute a night, there have never been reports of people live with no sleep at all.

There have been many a(prenominal) proposed functions of sleep, with two main theories existing.



The first concentrates on the restorative do of sleep, whilst the second concentrates on the evolutionary origin of sleep.

Restoration theories, such(prenominal) as those proposed by Oswald (1980), concentrate on the physiological benefits of sleep and speculate that the purpose of sleep is to repair tissues and conserve energy. Oswald utter that slow wave sleep allowed for repair because during this state of sleep, ripening hormones are released, causing an increase in protein synthesis, which allows for the repair of tissues in the body. This is back up by babies need for lots of sleep, combined with their speedy body and brain growth. Oswalds theory is also supported by the fact that humans tend...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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