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Sleep On It (November 4, 2005, Two)

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Program Summary

Sleep happens. We don’t know why.

Sleep is an essential part of our day, and we spend a third of our lives getting it or trying to. Lack of it can lead to poor health and decreased cognitive abilities. But what goes on in our brains while we’re asleep? After tens of thousands of years of sleeping, we’re still not sure. It used to be thought that our mental processes shut off during sleep, but research has shown that brain activity continues and that some areas are even more active than when we’re awake. Why is this? The best hypothesis is that the brain uses sleep periods to sort and process all the information that it received during the day, putting it together in meaningful ways and discarding what isn’t needed. It is theorized that learning takes place and memories are formed while we’re asleep.

If you’ve ever gotten up feeling groggy and cranky after a sleepless night, you know how important a good rest is. Scientists have found that eight hours of sleep really is optimum, but it can be difficult to get if you happen to suffer from a sleep disorder such as sleep apnea, sleep walking, or night terrors or from some other physical or mental condition that prevents you from sleeping uninterrupted. What can you do if you can’t get to sleep? Try deep breathing, warm milk, and a chapter of “War and Peace."

Guests

Carlos Schenck, senior staff physician at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Robert Stickgold, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts

Related Links and Resources

American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Journal SLEEP
National Sleep Foundation
Sleep Centers
Sleep Research Society
Sleep Runners: The Stories Behind Everyday Parasomnias

For Discussion:

• Why do we need sleep? What is the optimum amount of sleep per night?

• What do scientists think happens in the brain during sleep? How do we feel if we don’t get enough? What happens to our ability to function?

• Why do we sometimes have trouble falling or staying asleep?

• What is a sleep disorder? Describe some disorders and their causes.

• Do animals sleep? Does it serve the same purpose as human sleep? What about fish, birds, and insects?

Activities

Hitting the hay.  The National Sleep Foundation site will keep you wide awake with information about everything (and I mean everything) you ever wanted to know about sleep.  Learn what you don’t know about sleep, take tests (including the Snore Score) to assess your sleeping ability, and find out about common disorders at the Sleeptionary.  The Teens and Sleep page has a multitude of articles about how sleep impacts teen activities, including driving, sports, and school.  They’ll be glad to know that the Foundation advocates a later starting time for school.  Getting Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed Everyday?, a lesson plan from the New York Times Learning Network, discusses the effects of sleep deprivation, particularly on teens, and has teens give up one “luxury” activity in order to increase their sleep time.  They also keep a “quality of sleep” journal.

Haywired. Take a tour of a troubled night’s sleep at Sleep Disorders from Newspapers in Education. This web quest visits Neuroscience for Kids to learn about the mechanics of sleep, then moves on to explore sleep disorders such as parasomnia. Finally, you’ll take a quiz to evaluate your own quality of sleep. The National Institutes of Health offers a sophisticated lesson plan on Sleep, Sleep Disorders, and Biological Rhythm which concentrates on the physiology of sleep. Students keep a sleep diary and rate their sleepiness scale. Houston, We Have a Problem explains mechanical ways of measuring and comparing sleep and wakefulness and has students use these tools to assess the sleep state of three fictional astronauts.

Night crawlers. The world works 24 hours a day. Find out who likes it at night at Night Shift, an episode of PBS “Livelyhood.” The sleep page discusses napping, sleep deprivation, and how to get a good day’s sleep.

You are getting sle-e-e-py-y-y... Sleep: The Unknown World, from Thinkquest Internet Challenge, is not interactive, but it is well-researched and well-written and has sections on animal sleep and dreams. For more on animals, visit the National Sleep Foundation and Neuroscience for Kids. TIME MATTERS: Biological Clockworks is a fascinating exploration of circadian rhythm, with a page on animals and birds.

Visit these Science Friday Kids’ Connection pages for more on sleep and the brain:

June 11, 2004, Hour One: The Sleepy Brain
December 6, 2002, Hour Two: The Secret Life of Pond Scum
September 24, 2004, Hour One: Making Memories
February 9, 2001: Hour Two: Learning and Dreaming

Use the search box below to perform a Google search within any of the specifc sites or general domains mentioned in this Activities section.

Hear the Program

RealAudio format (courtesy NPR Online)
Windows Media format (courtesy NPR Online)
mp3 download (Science Friday Podcast)