Sunday, November 20, 2011
Are You Sleep Deprived?
On page 278 of our textbook there is a table entitled: "Are You Sleep Deprived?" This caught my eye because I often feel very tired. There are fifteen questions that you answer true or false to. It says that if you answer "true" three or more times, you are probably not getting enough sleep. Well, I did the activity and I got true for ten out of the fifteen statements. This is probably really not good. Cornell University psychologist James Maas recommends that you go to bed 15 minutes earlier than usual every night of the week- and continue this practice by adding fifteen more minutes each week- until you wake without an alarm clock and feel alert all day. This led me to my question. Statement number one of the the activity is: "I need an alarm clock in order to wake up at the appropriate time." Obviously, I answered yes to this question, but my main question is why is that important? Why does that tell you if you're sleep deprived. Maybe some people are just really deep sleepers and need a loud noise to wake them up. I always wondered how my mother can just wake up around the same time every morning and why the idea of using an alarm clock never even crosses her mind. Does any one have any ideas? Do you need an alarm clock to wake up?
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I think there are a few different factors to this issue.(Like many other things in psychology)
ReplyDeleteIt could be that you are just a deep sleeper who needs a loud noise to wake up, yes that is possible since you can be in the stage of REM.
But it is also possible that if you would go to sleep early every night, and you would always follow the same schedule then I feel like your body will get used to it and you will wake up automatically. This is very difficult though, therefore most people cannot hold up with that schedule and need to be awaken before their actual sleep schedule is done.
Don't worry Alexa I also need an alamclock to wake up, along with several snoozing options since I cannot get myself to get out of bed.
My dearest alexa,
ReplyDeleteI did the same test in the book and I also scored very poorly =S
However, I think that my problem isn’t that I don’t want to go to sleep its that I cant. I think im sleep-deprived because I can never fall asleep and therefore get less sleep and REM time!!
I find it so interesting hoe dependent we are upon sleep and that without it, we physically cannot function.