Headline, June 23 2022/ ''' '' REST MAGIC REAP '' '''

''' '' REST MAGIC

 REAP '' '''

HEALTH : WHILE YOU'RE AT REST - THE MAGIC HAPPENS. Your brain is fully 'on,'' solving problems, honing memories and dreaming-sweet.

ANY SLEEP tracker will show that slumber is far from a passive affair. And no stage of sleep demonstrates that better in rapid eye movement, or REM, commonly called dream sleep.

'' It's also called paradoxical sleep or active sleep, because REM sleep is actually very close to being awake,'' said Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta, a sleep medicine and pulmonary specialist at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

Before scientists discovered REM sleep in the 1950s, it wasn't clear that much of anything was happening in the brain at night. Researchers today, however, understand sleep as a highly active process composed of very different types of rest -including REM, which in some ways doesn't seem like rest at all.

While the body typically remains ''off '' during REM sleep, the brain is very much '' on.'' It's generating vivid dreams, as well as synthesizing memories and knowledge. Scientists are still working to unravel exactly how this strange state of consciousness works.

'' It is fair to say that there is a lot left to learn about REM sleep,'' Dr. Dasgupta said. But from what researchers do understand, REM is critical to emotional health and brain function - and potentially even longevity.

THE SLEEP CYCLE : Throughout the night, '' We're going in and out of this rhythmic, symphonic patterns of various stages of sleep : non-REM 1, 2, 3 and REM,'' said Rebecca Robbins, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate scientist in the division of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

As you doze off, you enter the first stage of non-REM. This lasts less than 10 minutes and is considered a light sleep. Your breathing and heart rate decelerate and your muscles relax as you slip into the second stage of non-REM sleep, where your body temperature drops and your brain waves get slower.

Then you enter the third stage, known as deep sleep, when your body repairs your bones and muscles, strengthens your immune system, releases hormones and restores your energy.

After that, REM sleep begins, and your heart rate, breathing and brain activity all increase. Brain regions involved in processing emotions and sensory input [from your dream world] light up. Meanwhile, your brain paralyzes the muscles in your arms and legs, preventing you from acting out your dreams, Dr. Dasgupta explained.

Ideally you move through the four stages in 90 - to - 110minute cycles that repeat four to six times in a typical night. Then after your last REM cycle, you  wake up rested and alert, said Dr. Indira Gurubhaga Vatula, a sleep specialist at Penn Medicine and associate professor of medicine at the V.A. Medical Center in Philadelphia.

What Are The Benefits? : If you've ever gone to bed upset about something and woken up noticeably less bothered, it's likely a result of the emotional processing  and memory consolidation that happens during REM.

There's evidence that your brain divorces memories from their charge - removing the ''sharp, painful edges'' from life's difficulties, said Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology and the founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. REM is ''like a form of overnight therapy,'' he said.

REM also makes us better learners. During this sleep stage, your brain strengthens neural connections formed by the previous day's experiences and integrates them into existing networks, Dr. Robbins said.

Dr. Walker added : '' We take those new pieces of information and start colliding them with our back catalog of stored information. It's almost a form of  informational alchemy.

These novel connections also make us more creative, he said. '' We wake with a revised mind-wide web of associations'' that helps us solve problems.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Sleep, Rest, and the Magic, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Carolyn Todd.

With respectful dedication to Mankind, and then Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society -the exclusive ownership of every student in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! : The Ecosystem 2011 :

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