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During slumber, our brain engages in data analysis, from strengthening memories to solving problems ...Until the mid-1950s, scientists generally assumed that the brain was shut down while we snoozed. Although German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus had evidence in 1885 that sleep protects simple memories from decay, for decades researchers attributed the effect to a passive protection against interference. We forget things, they argued, because all the new information coming in pushes out the existing memories. But because there is nothing coming in while we get shut-eye, we simply do not forget as much. Then, in 1953, the late physiologists Eugene Aserinsky...

A refreshing night's sleep may be the best way to boost memory, a study suggests. Researchers found sleep appears to have a dramatic impact on the way the brain functions the next day. It appears to strengthen connections between nerve cells in the brain - a process key to both learning and memory. The University of Geneva study was presented to a Federation of European Neuroscience Societies conference. The researchers studied a group of volunteers who were taught a new skill or shown images they would later have to remember. The skill tasks included trying to follow a moving dot...

MUMBAI: An Air India Jaipur-Mumbai flight flew well past its destination with both its pilots fatigued and fast asleep in the cockpit. When the pilots were finally woken up by anxious Mumbai air traffic controllers, the plane was about half way to Goa. ( Watch ) This nap in the sky took place about a fortnight ago on the domestic leg of a Dubai-Jaipur-Mumbai flight — IC 612 — which had about 100 passengers on board. "The plane took off from Dubai at 1.35am IST and then from Jaipur at 7am. After operating an overnight flight, fatigue levels peak, and...

This article goes over sleep physiology, stages of sleep and napping. I was unable to copy and paste a section of the article but the link above should help. The article is an excellent, short summary of the issues.

ScienceDaily (Jun. 11, 2008) — A cognitive behavioral intervention for insomnia delivered via the Internet can significantly improve insomnia in adults, according to a research abstract that will be presented on June 11 at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS). The study, authored by Lee Ritterband, PhD, of the University of Virginia, focused on 44 participants (mostly female) with an average age of 45 years. The participants were randomly selected to either the cognitive behavioral intervention for insomnia via the Internet or a wait list control. Measures of sleep, mood, cost, and cognitive...

House prices force Americans to sleep in cars By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 12:58AM BST 22/05/2008 Increasing numbers of women and elderly people are taking advantage of a scheme in one of America's wealthiest cities that enables the homeless to sleep safely in their cars at night. Organisers of the programme say they are seeing ever more unlikely people living out of their cars in the exclusive beachfront city of Santa Barbara, where the average house costs more than $1 million(£500,000). Many hold down part-time jobs while bedding down for the night in their vehicles. Barbara Harvey,...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A 3-year-old Florida boy with a rare condition has not slept in three years. Doctors said Rhett Lamb of St. Petersburg apparently has a condition called chiari malformation that puts pressure on his brain. Click here to find out more! Rhett has never taken a nap or gone to sleep at night, forcing his parents to keep watch day and night. "(My husband) has the day shift and I kind of have the afternoon shift," mother Shannon Lamb said. "We share the night shift because no one can sleep in the house when he is up...

ATLANTA - People who sleep fewer than six hours a night — or more than nine — are more likely to be obese, according to a new government study that is one of the largest to show a link between irregular sleep and big bellies. The study also linked light sleepers to higher smoking rates, less physical activity and more alcohol use. The research adds weight to a stream of studies that have found obesity and other health problems in those who don't get proper shuteye, said Dr. Ron Kramer, a Colorado physician and a spokesman for the American Academy...

Enlarge ImageScience of sleep. The scientists used fluorescent proteins--green and red in these images--to determine whether E. coli bacteria were active.Credit: Gefen et al., PNAS 105 (22 April 2008) Most antibiotics kill only microbes that are growing and multiplying, leaving untouched a select few that are hibernating. A new study suggests that a dose of the right nutrients can awaken these bacteria for just long enough to kill them with antibiotics. If the strategy works in humans, it might provide a more effective way to treat persistent diseases such as tuberculosis and urinary-tract infections. During infections, bacteria may slow...

PARIS (AFP) - An extra hour between the sheets at night might be the key to shedding excess weight and fighting obesity, according to recent research. "More sleep could be the ideal way of stabilising weight or slimming," said neuro-scientist Karine Spiegel, of France's INSERM, a public organisation dedicated to biological, medical and public health research. While poor eating habits and lack of exercise clearly play a role in the global rise of obesity, recent data indicates that lack of sleep may also be a factor, and one that is often under-estimated. Around 30 surveys carried out on wide population...

(CBS) Human beings spend on average one third of their lives asleep. We know we need to sleep but most of us have never really given a whole lot of thought to why. Why do we spend seven or eight hours a night immobile and unconscious? What really happens inside our brains and bodies while we're sleeping? We've known the purpose of our other biological drives for hundreds of years: we eat to give our bodies energy, we drink to keep hydrated, we procreate to perpetuate the species - among other things. But what is the biological purpose of sleep?...

This bunny is called Sweet Dreams and with a soft hymn called, “Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior” and her pancake-nightcap goes to sleep. Revski

Headaches linked to mobile phones By Lewis Carter Last Updated: 1:02am GMT 21/01/2008 Radiation from mobile phones damages sleep and causes headaches, according to a study by telephone makers. People using a handset before going to bed take longer to reach deeper stages of sleep and spend less time in them, researchers found. This gives their bodies less time to repair wear and tear during the day, and gives them headaches. advertisementThe findings are particularly alarming for children and teenagers, most of whom, surveys suggest, use their phones late at night. The young need plenty of sleep and failure to...

Sunday is 'worst for a night's sleep' By Bonnie Malkin Last Updated: 1:02am GMT 21/01/2008 It may explain that Monday morning feeling - research has found that Sunday is the most sleepless night of the week. Nearly 60 per cent of employees have their worst night's sleep of the week on Sundays, a survey claims, with restless nights forcing one in four to call in sick on a Monday. Disrupted sleep has also been blamed for a lack of concentration at work (46 per cent) on Mondays, increased irritability towards bosses (30 per cent) and the odd impromptu nap at...

Note: This commentary was delivered by PFM President Mark Earley. From Starbucks, to Red Bull, to No-Doz, Americans are showing signs of addiction to caffeine. Sixty percent of us drink a cup of coffee a day. On average we will drink 52 gallons of soda this year. And Starbucks—they get a whopping $5.3 billion of our collective dough. Whether we are chemically stimulating because we do not get enough sleep, or whether the caffeine itself is depriving us of precious rest, we are also sleeping less than ever before. Americans get an average of six and a half hours of...

...Research shows that teenagers’ body clocks are set to a schedule that is different from that of younger children or adults. This prevents adolescents from dropping off until around 11 p.m., when they produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and waking up much before 8 a.m. when their bodies stop producing melatonin. The result is that the first class of the morning is often a waste, with as many as 28 percent of students falling asleep, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll. Some are so sleepy they don’t even show up, contributing to failure and dropout rates. Many of our...

How To Sleep Like a Hunter-GathererNot all people sleep in "giant sleep machines," like we do. What’s really going on inside your head when you sleep, dream, or are wide-awake? In his fascinating new book, The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness (Random House, $24.95), science writer Jeff Warren explores some familiar and some less familiar states of consciousness, everything from daydreams to lucid dreams. Warren talked to scientists and Buddhist monks, slept in sleep labs, and spent time in a secluded mountain cabin to experience firsthand various states of consciousness. Along the way, he discovered perception-shifting information...

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – Bad dreams in pre-schoolers are less prevalent than thought. However, when they do exist, nightmares are trait-like in nature and associated with personality characteristics measured as early as five months, according to a study published in the January 1 issue of the journal SLEEP. The study, led by Valérie Simard, under the direction of Tore Nielsen, PhD, of the University of Montreal, sampled 987 children in the Province of Quebec, who were assessed by their parents at the 29-month, 41-month, 50-month, five-year and six-year mark. Parents were asked in a questionnaire about the frequency of their child’s...

I open my eyes with a start, like the murderous freak in the slasher movie the audience thinks is dead but isn't. The clock reads 3:55 A.M. I've awakened within six minutes of this time for the past three nights. I shut my eyes and take a breath, hoping to ease back to sleep. Too late. The anxiety is already gathering momentum, my brain roiling with thoughts that have no business being there in the middle of the night. It's like a Law & Order episode in my head: Opposing sides argue and counterargue, witnesses are badgered, lawyers shout objections....

LONDON - It was once scientific heresy to suggest that smoking contributed to lung cancer. Now, another idea initially dismissed as nutty is gaining acceptance: the graveyard shift might increase your cancer risk. Next month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, will classify shift work as a "probable" carcinogen. That will put shift work in the same category as cancer-causing agents like anabolic steroids, ultraviolet radiation, and diesel engine exhaust. If the shift work theory proves correct, millions of people worldwide could be affected. Experts estimate that nearly 20 percent of...

American Heart Association meeting report ORLANDO, Nov. 7 — A cholesterol-lowering drug appears to disrupt sleep patterns of some patients, researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2007. “The findings are significant because sleep problems can affect quality of life and may have adverse health consequences, such as promoting weight gain and insulin resistance,” said Beatrice Golomb, M.D., lead author of the study and an associate professor of medicine and family and preventive medicine at the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine. In the largest study of its kind, researchers compared two types of cholesterol-lowering...

Your dreams miss you. Or so says a television commercial for Rozerem, the sleeping pill. In the commercial, the dreams involve Abraham Lincoln, a beaver and a deep-sea diver. Not the stuff most dreams are made of. But if the unusual pitch makes you want to try Rozerem, consider that it costs about $3.50 a pill; gets you to sleep 7 to 16 minutes faster than a placebo, or fake pill; and increases total sleep time 11 to 19 minutes, according to an analysis last year. If those numbers send you out to buy another brand, consider this, as well:...

The patient was a 37-year-old man who had been physically abused as a boy by his schizophrenic mother, often while he lay in bed trying to fall asleep. Nevertheless, he had grown into a reasonably normal, gainfully employed adult, and he thought that the worst was behind him, until one night he awoke to find an intruder rummaging through his dresser drawers. After that, his nightmares began — terrifying, recurrent dreams in which the intruder was a middle-age woman and a knife dangled with Damoclesian contempt from the ceiling fan over his head. “The old fear memories had not gone...

Oral surgery can reduce CPAP needs in patients with sleep apnea (Chicago, IL, October 24, 2007) — A procedure known as uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) may help some patients improve or even eliminate their obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a new study. The research, presented at CHEST 2007, the 73rd annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), says the procedure, which removes excess tissue in the throat or mouth to widen the airway, can reduce the amount of treatment required by patients with OSA. In addition, researchers say UPPP also can eliminate OSA completely in some...

As every sleep researcher knows, the surest way to hear complaints about sleep is to ask the elderly. “Older people complain more about their sleep; they just do,” said Dr. Michael Vitiello, a sleep researcher who is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington. And for years, sleep scientists thought they knew what was going on: sleep starts to deteriorate in late middle age and steadily erodes from then on. It seemed so obvious that few thought to question the prevailing wisdom. Now, though, new research is leading many to change their minds. To researchers’...

Sleep apnea is commonly diagnosed by way of measuring airflow by nasal pressure, temperature, and/or carbon dioxide, through sensors placed in the nose. However, this method is uncomfortable to some and can potentially disturb sleep. But new research, presented at CHEST 2007, the 73rd annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), shows that remote infrared imaging can monitor airflow and accurately detect abnormalities during sleep, without ever coming in contact with the patient. The study indicates that the new method is ideal because it is portable and can monitor sleep in a natural environment. “Polysomnography...

In a study published in May, researchers at Harvard and McGill Universities reported that participants who slept after playing this game scored significantly higher on a retest than those who did not sleep. While asleep they apparently figured out what they didn’t while awake... “We think what’s happening during sleep is that you open the aperture of memory and are able to see this bigger picture,” said the study’s senior author, Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist who is now at the University of California, Berkeley. He added that many such insights occurred “only when you enter this wonder-world of sleep.” Scientists...

The task looks as simple as a “Sesame Street” exercise. Study pairs of Easter eggs on a computer screen and memorize how the computer has arranged them: the aqua egg over the rainbow one, the paisley over the coral one — and there are just six eggs in all. Most people can study these pairs for about 20 minutes and ace a test on them, even a day later. But they’re much less accurate in choosing between two eggs that have not been directly compared: Aqua trumped rainbow but does that mean it trumps paisley? It’s hazy. It’s hazy, that...

EXPEDITIONARY PATROL BASE - DULAB, Iraq (Oct. 10, 2007) -- “Enjoy it while you can maggots,” rasped the drill instructor into the darkness of the squad bay, “This is the most sleep you will see in the Corps, especially if you are allowed to become grunts.” The Marines with Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 2, now agree with the phantom from boot camp. In the small patrol base which borders on the village of Dulab, near the edge of the Euphrates River, sleep truly is a commodity. The Marines of Company A, known as the...

It's long been reported that a lack of sleep can be hazardous to one's health, but so can too much sleep, UK researchers report. Researchers from the University of Warwick and University College London found that both a lack of sleep and too much sleep can more than double the risk of death in individuals, according to a study of more than 10,308 people. Professor Francesco Cappuccio from the University of Warwick’s Warwick Medical School, speaking Monday to the British Sleep Society, said researchers studied data on the mortality rates and sleep patterns on the same group of civil servants...

Cat in dreamland. Short video Lol

An RAF mechanic who claimed he was sleepwalking when he had sex with a 15-year-old girl was cleared of rape yesterday. Senior Aircraftsman Kenneth Ecott, 26, broke down in tears after a jury took two hours to agree that he was not responsible for his actions. Ecott did not deny having sex with the girl but said he had no memory of it happening. Instead he insisted he had a condition known as 'sexsomnia' in which sufferers carry out indecent acts in their sleep. It was this rare affliction which caused him to climb naked on top of the girl...

PARIS (AP) - The French already enjoy a 35-hour work week and generous vacation. Now the health minister wants to look into whether workers should be allowed to sleep on the job.

This is a curiosity-based vanity. My impression is that the average FReeper works very hard. Probably the most common reason people deprive themselves of sleep is to get work done. I've heard some amazing stories of how little sleep soldiers have gotten in the midst of combat. What's your story? Incidentally, the longest I've ever gone without sleep was about 85 hours, with the help of a ton of coffee, Diet Coke, and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.

Video: Senator Byrd Snoozing during Speech of Soldiers Dying in Iraq Clicky for YouTube link.Senator Robert Byrd - DEMOCRAT, WVA...

Applying a gentle electric current to the brain during sleep can significantly boost memory, researchers report. A small new study showed that half an hour of this brain stimulation improved students? performance at a verbal memory task by about 8%. The approach enhances memory by creating a form of electrical current in the brain seen in deep sleep, the researchers suggest. ... The students? various sleep stages were monitored using an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine. When the students entered a period of light sleep, Born?s team started to apply a gentle current in one-second-long pulses, every second, for about 30 minutes....

ATLANTA, GEORGIA--Going a night without sleep may cause your hippocampus to go on strike. A new study has caught this crucial memory-encoding brain region slacking off in college students the day after they've pulled an all-nighter. The study is one of the first to investigate how sleep deprivation interferes with memory mechanisms in the human brain. Neuroscientist Matthew Walker of Harvard University and his colleagues paid 10 undergraduate students to forgo a night's sleep. The next day, the students viewed a series of 30 words, and two days later--after having two nights to catch up on their sleep--the students returned...

From the day they brought her home, the D'Avellas' black-and-white mutt loathed ringing phones. At the first trill, Jay Dee would bolt from the room and howl until someone picked up. But within a few weeks, the D'Avellas began missing calls: When the phone rang, their friends later told them, someone would pick up and then the line would go dead. One evening, Aida D'Avella solved the mystery. Sitting in the family room of her Newark, N.J., home, Ms. D'Avella got up as the phone rang, but the dog beat her to it. Jay Dee ran straight to the ringing...

Flies explain mystery of sleep By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 22/09/2006) The more we gossip, socialise and learn, the more we need to nap, scientists report today in a study that sheds new light on the mystery of sleep. Many theories have been put forward over the years to explain why we need so much sleep. Today, scientists put forward new evidence that our bodies require sleep so our brain can process what we have learned during the day. The insight is reported today in the journal Science by Dr Indrani Ganguly-Fitzgerald of the Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, California,...

SNORING is ruining the sex lives of one in four couples, a survey says. Twenty-five per cent sleep separately to avoid the racket, while half admit it affects their relationship. Seven in ten men confess to snoring, according to the Great British Snoring Survey. Four out of ten women admit they have a problem. Relationship expert Denise Knowles, from Relate, said: “People deprived of sleep suffer physically and emotionally. “Sex is the last thing you want when you’re shattered.” Marianne Davey of the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association said: “Snoring can put a big strain on relationships. We get...

LOS ANGELES -- If you know nothing about Metallica, "Enter Sandman" does sound like it could be the title of a lullaby. A company called Baby Rock Records has created lullaby versions of songs by Metallica, Coldplay and Radiohead. Executive producer Valerie Aiello said her company did the lullaby tributes because they love the music of all those artists. She said they tested the CDs on babies they knew and she can vouch that one crying baby fell asleep while listening to the Coldplay disc. The Metallica, Coldplay and Radiohead versions come out Tuesday. Future editions will feature lullaby versions...

Sleep with Neanderthals? Apparently we (homo Sapiens) did By Faye Flam The Philadelphia Inquirer Though it's been 150 years since mysteriously humanlike bones first turned up in Germany's Neander Valley, the find continues to shake our collective sense of human identity. Neanderthals are humanity's closest relatives, with brains at least as big as ours, and yet we don't know whether we should include them as members of our own species. No longer does science consider them our direct ancestors but some suspect Neanderthals and modern homo Sapiens interbred during the 20,000 some-odd years we co-existed in Europe. The archaeological record...

Sharing a bed with someone could temporarily reduce your brain power - at least if you are a man - Austrian scientists suggest. When men spend the night with a bed mate their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day. The lack of sleep also increases a man's stress hormone levels. According to the New Scientist study, women who share a bed fare better because they sleep more deeply. Sleepless nights Professor Gerhard Kloesch and colleagues at the University of Vienna studied eight unmarried, childless couples in their 20s....

Study reveals that even without sex, male brain is fatigued the next morning LONDON: Men beware — sleeping with your wife can damage your brain! The warning was issued by a team of Austrian scientists whose research suggested that when men spend the night with a partner, their sleep patterns are disturbed. The research, carried out by a team led by Professor Gerhard Kloesch at the University of Vienna and presented to the Forum of European Neurosciences in Vienna, claimed that even women who share a bed had disturbed sleep, but their brain power remained undiminished. Men's mental agility, however,...

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania found that sleep benefits an individual's ability to recall recently learned declarative memories, even when recall of these memories is challenged hours later by competing information. This finding is particularly important for individuals with mentally demanding lifestyles, such as doctors, medical residents and college students, who often do not get adequate amounts of sleep. The study appears in the July 11, 2006 issue of Current Biology. Declarative memories, or hippocampus-mediated memories, are types of memories about facts and events that can generally be put into words....

Colleges across the country are reporting a drop in SAT scores this year. I've been tutoring students in New York City for the SAT since 1989, and I have watched the numbers rise and fall. This year, though, the scores of my best students dropped about 50 points total in the math and verbal portions of the test (each on a scale of 200 to 800). Colleges and parents are wondering: Is there something wrong with the new test? Or are our children not being taught what they should know? Before 1994, the verbal section of the SAT was about...

The movement to give groggy teens a bit more shut-eye by pushing back the school start time is gaining steam. Fifty mothers gathered at a Central Middle School PTA meeting yesterday to hear how the Wilton League of Women Voters studied adolescent sleep patterns, concluded that the start of high school ought to be pushed back and then worked with the school system to change the start time from 7:15 a.m. to 8:20 a.m. without adding transportation costs to the district budget. "New research is showing that (adolescents') hormones and circadian rhythms don't allow them to go to sleep until...

Sleep at work By ELOISE KING May 16, 2006 EVER felt like sleeping on the job? Rather than crumbling into unsightly heaps on their desks, Sydney workers may soon have access to a comfortable and legitimate place to nap at their offices. Snooze: a worker tries out a pod yesterday MetroNaps Australia is this week launching its sleep pods in the foyer of the ABN AMRO building, on the corner of Phillip and Bent Sts in the city. Busy workers are invited to stop in and put up their feet for 20 minutes to relax and rejuvenate in style. Nappers'...

PAULSBORO, N.J. - It's bedtime and your toddler is having a meltdown, insisting on just one more episode of "Bob the Builder." Well, parents, now TV might help. Melanie the baby sitter, Star the puppet and Hush the goldfish are the stars of a new bedtime show on PBS KIDS Sprout. Since mid-April, the cast of "The Good Night Show" has been taping the second season in a Paulsboro studio, just outside Philadelphia. The show returns in July on KIDS Sprout, a cable and satellite network owned jointly by Comcast Corp., PBS, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment. The network features...

WASHINGTON - Zolpidem tartrate, the sedative-hypnotic better known to wide-awake, stressed-out sheet kickers as Ambien, is an efficacious little helper if you ever thought you might go crazy from not sleeping. It's "Goodnight Moon" for grown-ups. You should take it only with some Charlie Rose. Now it's also become the new explanation for that which goes bump in the night: I took an Ambien, Americans are saying, and then I don't know exactly what happened.