Skimp on the sleep and your emotional control will decay.
Without sleep, the emotional centers of the brain dramatically overreact to negative experiences, reveals a new brain imaging study in the October 23rd issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. The reason for that hyperactive emotional response in sleep-deprived people stems from a shutdown of the prefrontal lobe—a region that normally keeps emotions under control.
The new study from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Berkeley is the first to explain, at the neural level, what seems to be a universal phenomenon: that sleep loss leads to emotionally irrational behavior, according to the researchers. The findings might also offer some insight into the clinical connection between sleep disruptions and psychiatric disorders.
Have a hard time controlling your emotions? Get enough sleep. You can’t afford to cut corners on your sleep.
Maybe people become more primitive when they lack sleep.
In the new study, Walker’s team assigned 26 healthy people to either a sleep-deprivation group—in which participants were kept awake for about 35 hours—or a normal sleep group. On the following day, the study subjects’ brains were scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity on the basis of blood flow, while viewing 100 images. The images were at first emotionally neutral, but became increasingly aversive over time.
“We had predicted a potential increase in the emotional reaction from the brain [in people deprived of sleep], but the size of the increase truly surprised us,” Walker said of the study’s findings. “The emotional centers of the brain were over 60% more reactive under conditions of sleep deprivation than in subjects who had obtained a normal night of sleep. It is almost as though, without sleep, the brain reverts back to a more primitive pattern of activity, becoming unable to put emotional experiences into context and produce controlled, appropriate responses.
Do we have free will? At best the extent of our free will varies as a function of how much sleep we get, whether we take steroids (roid rage), and countless other influences.
By Randall Parker 2007 October 22 09:46 PM Brain Sleep
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Hmmm I’ll have to read more on this. I’m wondering if oversleeping can cause like problems?
Any one have ideas?
Oversleeping does not come without drawbacks either. The best is tailoring a sleeping routine that fits the needs of your body as well as your schedule. People generally need 6-8 hours of sleep per night but many can get away with less (5 or so). It’s important finding out what is the right amount for you.
What are the negatives of oversleeping? First it accomodates your mind with sleeping more, your natural “biological clock” is altered, ultimately you won’t get enough quality sleep despite the fact that you’re sleeping a dozen hours. As a result, you will sleep even more, becoming addicted to oversleeping, and you will start wasting time. Chances are that sooner or later you can get to a stage where you’re asleep more than awaken (crossing the 12 hr barrier per day) and still feeling tired, exhausted, and sleepy.
Your level of performance decreases drastically, your self-esteem takes a hit, and a lot of work, projects, deadlines starts to pile up and thus you’ll get stressed. It’s no good. Especially since you are still very tired and really sleepy throughout all of your waking hours. Additional negatives is loss of appetite, relentlessness, loss of mental focus and clarity. Eventually a hit on your sexual performance and a huge decrease of drive. Yes, I know that a good night sleep certainly helps keeping a healthy testosterone production but oversleeping is not healthy. Less is no good; more isn’t either; balance, balance, balance…
The solution is finding a right balance. Just like experimenting with pheromone mixing you need to try out different sleeping patterns until you tailor one that satisfies you. If you’re sleeping a lot right now then you should cut back your sleeping but not dramatically - do it in stages. It’s really important to break that vicious cycle of ‘oversleeping habit’ because it can (and will) affect your psysiology, health, and the overall quality of your life.
Furthermore, it’s worth investigating the source of this habit. How did it generated? If you tend to sense your alarm clock, shut it off unconsciously (while being in that heavily drowsy state - low alpha, high theta brainwaves), and oversleep. You wake up hours later and realize that you’ve shut down your clock then the solution is to move your alarm clock to a place that is out of your reach and requires you to get out of the bed to actually stop it. That requires “activity” and instantly gets your blood pumping and ultimately your brainwaves will drift into the high betas (waking state) and you will feel awaken and energetic. This won’t be easy at first but with tenicious practice you will incorporate this habit of waking up ASAP as your clock goes off and ultimately the clock will become a powerful anchor (NLP) that awakens your mental state. Additionally, your internal biological clock gets used to your routine and be amazed when you will start waking up a few seconds prior to your alarm going off. 
There are particular tidbits behind this in which I cannot get into right now (time constrains). However feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to help.
Seems like the important part is the “filet of sleep”… the deepest stage 4 near-coma sleep that only lasts a few hours, max… the body and mind repair prosesses and the highest production of essential youth hormones occur during stage 4 and not as much in the lighter sleep stages… so whatever you do, make your first priority the depth of sleep for the crucial pit-stop of level 4 maintenance… get the best mattress you can afford, use the best air filters you can afford.. make your bedroom the healthiest place you can… soundproof it if possible… background noise is now being studied as a real health hazard if it causes chronic sleep reduction… the statistics on this are awesome in their implications… sleep deprived men (and probably women) are dramatically more prone to death by heart attack and crippling cardio-vascular disease… something like a two hour shortage of sleep over a long period raises your heart attack risk by 47%… !!!.. that’s freaking crazy…
I was actually thinking about a particular person in my life who oversleeps, but by doing so gets very little value sleep which in turn could create the same effects as under sleeping causing emotional over reactions.
What’s strange though is never really get enough sleep during the work week with my 40 hour job, Androtics work, Care of mom, girlfriends and life and yet I never tend to over react emotionally. Perhaps it’s because I’ve trained myself using inner game to not be reactionary.
I’ll have to think back about this.
This is a little off topic, but for people who are having issues staying asleep or falling asleep. There is a natural hormone called melatonin which helps regulates sleep. You can get it at health/vitamin stores. I personally used some in the 1mg pill that dissolves. This was during finals week, out like a log within 5 minutes. Whats great about it is that it is none habit forming.
I personally find I need 8 1/2 - 9 hours of good sleep or I fall asleep in the afternoons (about 14:30 or so. I usually wake up around 7:00). I had the “luxury” while unemployed to experiment with bed-times and sleep cycles/length. I found for me that sleeping from about 22:00 to about 7:00 optimal.
But that’s just me. Your mileage may vary. (Would that be “kilometerage” in Europe???)
Where on earth did you get this from? I won’t pretend to be “the expert” on sleep medicine, but there really is no such thing as “oversleeping”–it’s a myth. Our body’s “biological clock”, so long as it is physically healthy and intact, will keep us on a circadian cycle of roughly 24 hours, sleeping as much as it needs to repair and refresh itself. Early studies of sleep medicine included removing parts of the brain that control sleep in monkeys. They, of course, slept all the time, and could only stay away with external stimulation.
When people claim they sleep “too much” (something ghastly long, like 9 hours!), and complain of feeling worse, it is often because they need more sleep and/or they woke in the middle of their sleep cycle (~3 hours). The average human being requires 8.5 hours of sleep. Those who require less are not uncommon, though they typically have shorter lives. There is, of course “sleep debt”, which accumulates during the day and is supposed to be “cleared” after a full night’s rest. When we don’t get enough sleep, we increase our sleep debt, requiring us to sleep longer to “pay back” the debt. In the case when someone has slept off their debt, they will find falling asleep difficult because they don’t need to sleep any debt. This may cause a disruption in one’s sleep schedule for a few days, but eventually it evens itself out (staying awake builds sleep debt). Now, most people carry around with them a huge sleep debt (often that can’t be cleared within a night or two’s sleep). For them, eating a big meal, a boring lecture or meeting, or a warm, comfortable room “makes them sleepy”, though it actually creates either a comfortable environment (warm room), or doesn’t provide them with enough stimulation to fight off the need to sleep.
There are a lot of misconceptions regarding sleep that are engraned in our thinking. The small bit that I’ve said here is some of what I learned from Dr. Dement’s course, but please feel free to read more either from his book or his guide to sleep (designed for students, but helpful to everyone). You can also check out the website SleepQuest for info on sleep and sleep disorders.