It is clearly difficult to study the long-term consequences of bad sleep in humans. It is therefore conceivable that any excess of wakefulness is the potentially damaging factor rather than a lack of sleep per se. This response to prolonged wakefulness is seen particularly in nerve cells that appear to be protecting themselves from damage and potential early death or apoptosis. In recent animal models, it appears that being awake for just a few hours vigorously activates metabolic ‘cell stress’ or adaptive biochemical pathways. As a consequence, some authorities have termed REM sleep as ‘paradoxical sleep’. Indeed, during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the brain is as metabolically active as during wakefulness. In many respects, sleep is an active brain state and is not merely the absence of wakefulness. Almost certainly, however, it has much more than a simple passive or restful role. Intuitively, sleep appears to facilitate restoration and repair. The fact that every animal has evolved to have an absolute need for regular sleep in order to survive clearly suggests that it performs some vital and, as yet, ill-defined function. However, the true long-term importance of good sleep for optimal general health may not yet be fully recognised. Virtually everyone acknowledges that significantly disturbed sleep has profound and immediate adverse effects on mental, cognitive and even physical well-being. During nocturnal sleep, a variety of bodily movements is experienced normally.Around 5% of the population can be considered excessively sleepy during the day although increased sleepiness may not be recognised as such and may be expressed through other symptoms.At least 90% of the adult population benefit from 7–8 hours of good sleep per night.REM sleep is a very active brain state which has been proposed to facilitate memory consolidation and emotional processing although its true function ultimately remains obscure.If insufficient deep non-REM sleep is obtained during a night, subjects will generally awake unrefreshed.Increasing age dramatically alters sleep quality and consolidation.Vivid dreams most often occur from the REM sleep stage.Sleep is highly orchestrated into discrete cycles of non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) and rapid eye movement (REM) stages.In large population studies across the globe, chronically poor or insufficient sleep appears to correlate with increased mortality, arterial disease, diabetes and possibly cancer rates.Sleep almost certainly serves a vital function at the cellular level and is an absolute requirement for every animal.
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