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Health Matters Trust Marandure
Sleep is perhaps one of the least understood physiological processes. Its value to human health and proper functioning is without question. Sleep is absolutely essential to both the body and the mind. Impaired sleep, altered sleep patterns, and sleep deprivation wreak havoc on mental and physical function.

Many health conditions, particularly depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia, are either entirely or partially related to sleep deprivation or disturbed sleep.

Many use over the counter sedatives to combat insomnia, while others seek stronger prescription medications from their physicians. Each year up to 10 million people in the United States receive prescriptions for drugs to help them go to sleep.

As with other health conditions, the most effective treatment of insomnia is based upon identifying and addressing causative factors. The most common cause of insomnia are physiological – depression, anxiety, and tension.

If physiological factors do not seem to be the cause, various foods, drinks, and medications may be responsible. There are numerous compounds in food and drink and well over 300 drugs that can interfere with normal sleep.

Some of the benefits of sleep are probably mediated through grown hormone [GH]. An anabolic hormone, GH has been called by some the “anti-aging” hormone. Several research projects are now studying its rejuvenating effects when it is injected.

The reason for the excitement is that GH stimulates tissue regeneration, liver generation, muscle building, breakdown of fat stores, normalisation of blood sugar regulation, and a whole host of other beneficial processes in the body. In other words, it helps convert fat to muscle. Small amounts of GH are secreted at various times during the day, but most GH secretion occurs during sleep.

Sleep functions as an antioxidant for the brain: free radicals that can damage neutrons are moved as you snooze. Most people can tolerate a few days without sleep and fully recover. However, chronic sleep deprivation appears to accelerate aging of the brain, causes neuronal damage, and leads to night time elevations in the stress hormone cortisol.

How much sleep do you need?

Exactly how much sleep is required by an individual varies from one person to the next and from one stage of life to another. A one year old baby requires about 14 hours of sleep a day, a five year old about 12 hours, and adults about seven to eight.

In addition, women tend to require more sleep than men. As people age their sleep needs may decline, but so does their ability to sustain sleep, probably as a result of decreased levels of important brain chemicals such as serotonin and melatonin. The elderly tend to sleep less at night but dose more during the day than younger adults.

Normal sleep patterns

From observation of eye movement and electroencephalographic [EEG] recordings, we know that there are two distinct types of sleep: REM [rapid eye movement] sleep, which is when dreaming takes place, and non-REM sleep.

Non-REM is divided into stages one through four according to level of EEG activity and ease of arousal. As sleep progresses there is deepening of sleep of sleep and slower brain wave activity until REM sleep, when suddenly the brain becomes much more active. In adults, the first REM sleep cycle is usually triggered 90 minutes after going to sleep and lasts about five to 10 minutes. After the flurry of activity, brain wave patterns return to those of non- REM sleep for another 90-minute sleep cycle.

Each night, most adults experience five or more sleep cycles.

The importance of dreams

Dreams are very important to our physical and mental well- being. A dream is a sequence of sensations, images, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind. We also use the word dream to refer to a wish, fantasy, desire, or fanciful vision. It is our dreams that propel us as we roll through this life. They are powerful, inspirational, and potentially healing.

The famous author Anatole France said something about dreams and life that we think hits home. Existence would be intolerable if we were never to dream.

The importance of dreams to mental health is obvious if you examine what happens to people who are deprived of REM sleep. In the early 1960s, the pioneering dream researcher William Dement conducted several interesting studies in which subjects sleeping in a laboratory setting were awakened the moment REM began to occur and then allowed to go back sleep.

The experiment continued for one week. During this time the test group reported increased irritability, anxiety, and appetite. People deprived of REM sleep exhibited profound personality changes — extreme irritability, depression, anxiety, and so on that disappeared when they were allowed to dream again.

Humans have been attempting to answer the question “Where do dreams come from and what do they mean?” since the dawn of civilisation.

Some ancient cultures considered dreams to be more significant than the events of their waking lives, but the modern view of dreams was initially swayed a bit by fears that dreams might undermine moral conduct or that they are meaningless, the result of random nerve firings or physical discomfort. The emerging view is a more holistic one, as it recognises that dreams have both physiology and psychological causes.

Modern psychologists became fascinated with dreams through the work of Sigmund Freud, who saw dreams as the window to the soul. Freud’s classic view was that dreams were safe expressions of impulses and desires buried in the subconscious mind.

We believe that some dreams can aid us in working out issues in our waking lives.

Dreams allow us an opportunity to view what is being imprinted on our subconscious mind.

They are often symbolic attempts to sort out the options we can choose in life. Obviously, there are times when dreams are not psychologically meaningful.

For example, if you are suffering from indigestion or a peptic ulcer and experience a violent dream where you are getting stabbed in the stomach, we would not recommend trying to uncover some deep psychological issue.

The problem with trying to interpret every dream is that not every dream will be meaningful.

None the less, we think it is important to examine every dream for possible clues for personal growth.

If you are interested in learning more about dreams, we recommend going to the website of the International Association for the Study of Dreams.

This organisation is dedicated to the pure and applied investigation of dreams and dreaming.

Its purposes are to promote an awareness and appreciation of dreams in both professional and public arenas.

• Dr Trust Marandure is a Naturopathy Practitioner based in Bulawayo who can be contacted on 0772482382 or [email protected]