Tag Archives: sleep cycles

Apr 13 2011

Circadian clocks: The sleepy ties that bind!

Humans.

As much as we often like to pretend that we are a unique creation, crafted by Mother Nature’s loving touch to be superior to all the other species She hath created…

Articles like the first two just go to show that there is far more equality to be found in all Her creations, than humanity often likes to acknowledge.

One such thing? The similar way biological systems adapts to stress through their circadian clocks.

Fine example.

Plants do it to be able to withstand extreme environmental stresses put on their system in the forms of extreme cold or drought:

All living things – humans, animals, , microbes – are influenced by circadian rhythms, which are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Michael Thomashow, University Distinguished Professor of molecular genetics, along with MSU colleagues Malia Dong and Eva Farré, has identified that the  provides key input required for plants to attain maximum freezing tolerance.

“The integration of cold-signaling pathways with the circadian clock may have been an important evolutionary event that has contributed to plant adaptation to cold environments,” Thomashow said. [Read More]

Humans circadian clocks make the needed adjustments to help the body withstand the biological stresses that come with old age.

Our sleep cycles are governed by the circadian genes in our cells. These genes are expressed at different strengths during the day, with the peak periods corresponding to when we’re awake. These circadian genes work in a 24-hour cycle, but the precise times at which the genes peak and dip shifts earlier as people grow older. That’s why older people tend to get up and go to bed much earlier than their younger peers. [Read More]

In the end, it all comes down to a biological entities need to adapt…

We all need it.

And Mother Nature?

She gave.

Equally.

It’s what she does and quite honestly? I often find our connection to Mother Nature and all her creations breathtaking and should be respected, appreciated and honored…

But THIS?

Come on – Seriously?

What are ‘people’ laws don’t screw things up enough NOW, we have to add to it…

UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country. [Read More]

COMING SOON: Tree and Bug Lawyers!

Sad part is?

This is probably more predictive than any of us realize.

Jeez.

Nov 13 2010

Sleeping reconstructs your memories, making them stronger!

I have seen so many scientific studies that claim science has discovered yet one more reason for sleep…

Here is yet another one. Though I must say, I do like the thought of this one as it definitely fits with some of the studies I have read in the past:

As humans, we spend about a third of our lives asleep. So there must be a point to it, right? Scientists have found that sleep helps consolidate memories, fixing them in the brain so we can retrieve them later. Now, new research is showing that sleep also seems to reorganize memories, picking out the emotional details and reconfiguring the memories to help you produce new and creative ideas, according to the authors of an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.


“Sleep is making memories stronger,” says Jessica D. Payne of the University of Notre Dame, who cowrote the review with Elizabeth A. Kensinger of Boston College. “It also seems to be doing something which I think is so much more interesting, and that is reorganizing and restructuring memories.”

Payne and Kensinger study what happens to memories during sleep, and they have found that a person tends to hang on to the most emotional part of a memory. For example, if someone is shown a scene with an emotional object, such as a wrecked car, in the foreground, they’re more likely to remember the emotional object than, say, the palm trees in the background—particularly if they’re tested after a night of sleep. They have also measured brain activity during sleep and found that regions of the brain involved with emotion and memory consolidation are active.

“In our fast-paced society, one of the first things to go is our sleep,” Payne says. “I think that’s based on a profound misunderstanding that the sleeping brain isn’t doing anything.” The brain is busy. It’s not just consolidating memories, it’s organizing them and picking out the most salient information. She thinks this is what makes it possible for people to come up with creative, new ideas.

Payne has taken the research to heart. “I give myself an eight-hour sleep opportunity every night. I never used to do that—until I started seeing my data,” she says. People who say they’ll sleep when they’re dead are sacrificing their ability to have good thoughts now, she says. “We can get away with less sleep, but it has a profound effect on our cognitive abilities.”