Talk:Sleep/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Sleep latency

I would like to include the normal amount of time that it takes to fall asleep. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.126.93.201 (talk) 03:55, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question. Find a good source and add it! My guess would be about 5 to 20 minutes.

(I'm adding a new section title, as this seems to be a new discussion.) - Hordaland (talk) 13:59, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Amusingly, there is already a Wikipedia article on sleep onset latency, although it isn't very useful. This link may be a reasonable starting point for research. looie496 (talk) 17:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

What that latency article does point out, though not real clearly, is that sleep latency will vary according to the time of day you're going to sleep. For example (and there should be many sources for this out there), if a normal, healthy, not-sleep-deprived adult consistently goes to bed at 11 p.m., s/he will likely get to sleep quite quickly at that time. Trying to get some sleep at 8 p.m. or at 11 a.m. will take longer. But this varies widely individually, and taking a nap at siesta time (about 1-2 p.m.) will allow a much shorter latency than the nap times just mentioned. - Hordaland (talk) 10:09, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

5-HTP

I could swear I removed that sentence at some point. The statement that ingesting 5-HTP can cause drowsiness is false, or at least misleading. I have taken it, and I can tell you that its direct effect is to enhance wakefulness. The directions on some bottles actually advise taking it in the morning or afternoon, not at night -- and I'll tell you that if you do take it at night, you won't find it easy to sleep. It is true that if taken in the morning, it probably has a modest effect of making it easier to fall asleep at night, many hours later, but that isn't the impression given by the sentence currently in the article. (What I am saying here fits the pharmacology, by the way: serotonin levels drop during SWS and fall almost to zero during REM, so a serotonin agonist such as 5-HTP would not be expected to directly promote sleep.) looie496 (talk) 17:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

That's OR, Looie :-)

The question comes up every Thanksgiving, doesn't it? Coturnix comments on it again, with links to comment sections from previous years, and to other blog posts. Does Tryptophan from turkey meat make you sleepy? Here. Short version: nobody knows; studies in several species are incomplete. - Hordaland (talk) 23:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's my OR against the article's unsourced statement :-). But see this abstract, the first I hit using Google Scholar. Anyway, I'm pretty skeptical about tryptophan myself, since it's a basic amino acid that comes into play all over the body. But 5-HTP plays the same role in the serotonin system that L-DOPA plays in the dopamine system, and so from a theoretical point of view it ought to be a pretty potent drug. Looie496 (talk) 23:48, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Sub-optimal image caption

"Two men sleeping in Tehran" is not the most descriptive caption that I could think of for the image in the introduction. Wouldn't "sitting on a bench" or "in sitting posture" be more relevant information than in what country they happen to be located? __meco (talk) 11:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

OK. The woman is identified by community or tribe, but the child isn't. I'll change the 2 men. - Hordaland (talk) 14:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I favor reverting the caption back to "Two men sleeping in Tehran", rather than "Two men sleeping in a sitting position". Because anyone (except blind readers) can see that they're sitting, it adds no information to the picture. The Tehran caption was educational for people like me who thought up until now that Tehran was basically a barren sand-filled desert filled with scorched-clay buildings and dark skinned people who wear turbans and ride camels on the streets. But if I came across the picture for the first time now I would probably say "Wow, look at all that green grass. This picture must have been taken in some place like Vermont!" Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 21:27, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

OK. It could also have been taken here in Western Norway except that, of course, here we have polar bears instead of camels in the streets. :-) - Hordaland (talk) 17:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Improper citing

This article constantly cites various authors et al. in the main article. Someone should cite the article in proper wiki format. Odin1 (talk) 08:35, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Puchiko (Talk-email) 14:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

discontinuing stage 4?

There's a lot of mention that some "new standard" gets rid of stage 4, but it needs to be cited. Anyone? 83.146.14.125 (talk) 00:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Here you go.

- Hordaland (talk) 19:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I rewrote that section as it was really disordered. I also moved the picture so that it appears in the blank space on the right of the TOC, instead of squashing up the lead paragraph. 83.146.13.184 (talk) 15:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks much! - Hordaland (talk) 22:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Anthropology of sleep

I think that this section should be downsized due to the confusion between anthropological and biological sleep patterns, we ARE diurnal after all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.179.21.63 (talk) 23:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

On this topic also see recent study: [1]. Among the OECD countries, French and Americans sleep the most. Koreans and Japanese the least, followed by Norwegians and Swedes. The Scandinavian Finland though is about average (so latitude might not have much to do with this).radek (talk) 19:26, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting stuff. Here's India's take on it

But self-reported sleep time isn't very reliable. Here's an American study report on that. It wouldn't surprise me if there are cultural differences making one country overestimate and another under. Maybe.

(And. Sorry to be picky but Finland is a Nordic country but not a Scandinavian one. It is, of course, as far north as most of Norway. The Scandinavian languages are germanic and closely related. Finnish is way different, related only to Estonian and Hungarian as far as I know.) - Hordaland (talk) 21:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

---

I would like to add on the subject of anthropology, the first paragraph looks like a load of bullshit to me with no sources, it claims that societies without artificial light tend to wake up during the night MORE than societies with artificial light. In my opinion it is the opposite because societies with artificial light tend to be distracted by things more easily, such as the sound of passing ambulances or electronic devices. Surely societies without artificial light should sleep more regularly because it is dark throughout the whole night and there aren't as many distractions to them... anyone agree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.5.170.126 (talk) 13:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

See the article segmented sleep for more information about sleep patterns in pre-industrial societies. I believe they are fairly well established and in fact you can see the same phenomenon in the poorest countries in the world today where, by and large, there is still no electricity or what electricity there is is too expensive to use more than absolutely necessary. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 13:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

To put it another way: near the equator it's dark 12 hours of the day, and everywhere else it's dark more than 12 hours at least some of the time. No healthy adult sleeps 12 hours, so there's going to have to be time awake during the dark. And it turns out that it seems that nature has made humans light sleepers, so that sleep during the 12 hours of dark is spread out over the time instead of being all at once with 4 hours of nothing beside it. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 13:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Anthropology plays a part in human sleeping cycle, but the whole article does not mention once that humans are diurnal, leaving the reader to assume that everyone is at the mercy of the culture and other factors (such as artificial light). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.179.9.130 (talk) 06:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

serotonin and sleep

I'd just like to add a pointer to PMID 19209176, which contains a nice explanation of the relationship between serotonin and sleep. The basic story is that serotonin agonists have an immediate effect of increasing wakefulness, but a delayed indirect effect of promoting slow wave sleep. The increased sleep always comes during the natural sleep phase of the light/dark cycle, regardless of what time of day the drug is administered. Looie496 (talk) 17:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Caffeine addiction and sleep problems

The article says about caffeine: "It can cause a rapid reduction in alertness as it wears off." This is like saying that heroin can make the regular user feel unwell when it wears off. "No such thing as caffeine addiction" I hear you say, but would you be willing to go without it? People who do not consume caffeine (including myself) report feeling alert all the time, and fall asleep rapidly and wake up alert and refreshed. 78.151.148.89 (talk) 22:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Where does it say that there is "No such thing as caffeine addiction"? It's mentioned in the article Caffeine. I can assure you that there are troublesome withdrawal symptoms after less than 24 hours.

I agree that the sentence about reduction in alertness doesn't say much. - Hordaland (talk) 22:32, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Some Positions Better Than Others?

(that headline sounds more fun than this inquiry really is, sorry;p) Is it unhealthy to sleep in a non-horizontal position? Fx on a couch, leaned against some pillows? Or is it a matter of taste or is it completely irrelevant for the quality of sleep?62.107.24.213 (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Bed time

There is no artical on wikipedia solely dedicated to bedtime, and things to related to it. For instance, the importance of sleep at the correct time; how to deal with problems that children have with bed time, and what an approapriate bed time actually is. It could be very helpful. I would liek to create it myself, but would be very unsure what to put in it. Is there anyone that would liek to begin it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.240.134.84 (talk) 17:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. There is indeed an article on bedtime, you can find it at Bedtime. Please feel free to edit the article, but keep in mind Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a how-to guide. Be sure to use plenty of reliable sources and welcome to Wikipedia! Happy editing! Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Deeper sleep? More rest in less time

Is it possible to have even deeper layers "strata" if you would, of sleep? Could some people sleep only 4 or 6 hours a night and yet wake fully rested? It's happened to me before, sometimes when I've only slept 6 hours. The snare (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The section: "Effects of food and drink/drugs on sleep"

The section has been tagged since last fall and now there's just a tag -- no content. Here is what the content looked like at one time.

We don't need a rambling, unsourced section, but just title+tag looks silly and shouldn't stay for months as a place holder. I'm removing it. We probably should have such a section, so there's a project for someone...

Forgeddabout it. The not-very-good content is still there - I must'uv blinked. - Hordaland (talk) 01:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Effect of food and drink on sleep section

There is a section titled "Effect of food and drink on sleep," but most of its contents are drug related. Shouldn't it be titled "Drugs affecting sleep?" PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 15:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Cause

I'm a layman on the subject, but don't we sleep because we are simply tired? I.e. physically fatigued, and mentally fatigued. The lede makes it seem that this is a mystery. --Jay(Talk) 03:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I changed "purposes" to "purposes and mechanisms"; maybe that helps? There are many unanswered questions. What's happening in the synapses? Why are some types of learning reinforced by sleep, much more than others? What does tired / fatigued actually mean? (Is a fruit fly mentally fatigued?) There are still many mysteries - it's fascinating stuff. - Hordaland (talk) 13:11, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

LSD and Sleep

I don't know much about psychology, or chemistry for that matter, but I've ingested LSD a number of times, and each time I find it almost completely impossible to sleep at all. The very idea is repulsive, and several friends have concurred about this. Does anyone know anything or want to research this and add it to the article? -Problematik —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.74.246.109 (talk) 04:49, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That information belongs in the LSD article, not here. Sleeplessness is indeed mentioned in that article. - Hordaland (talk) 15:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Random sleeping images

Are all of the random images of sleeping people really necessary? I don't think that anybody needs to know what a man sleeping on a bench looks like; we've all seen sleeping people before. Still, although I hate to contradict myself, the sleeping kitten definitely WAS necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.53.161.143 (talk) 07:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Totally. We NEED the kitten. 79.78.62.102 (talk) 11:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Even needed?

"Some say aliens abducts people when people are sleeping."

Is this even needed or relevant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.222.212.93 (talk) 06:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

That was vandalism. Unfortunately this article is a bit of a vandal magnet. Looie496 (talk) 16:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Functions: Restoration

"A sedentary non-sleeping animal is more likely to survive predators, while still preserving energy. Sleep therefore does something else other than conserving energy."

There's a shaky logic in that. It's assumed that sleep could not evolve as a mechanism to preserve energy because it's not the most efficient way to do that. That would be possible to prove if we knew of other energy-preserving strategies employed by animals who don't sleep. Do we? But traits don't necessarily evolve down the most efficient paths, they seem to follow the most effiecient paths available and some times evolutionary trade-offs are made. For example, bipedalism in humans is not a very efficient form of locomotion so it probably served some purpose other than walking- but the primary use of legs is still walking. So sleep could have been the best way to conserve energy while doing something else in addition to that, or it may have been the cost to pay for an other characteristic, or any number of things like that.

As about predation, it should be noted that predators sleep too. For the quoted proposition to fully stand to reason, it must be shown that all or most animals sleep at different times than their most common predators- otherwise sleep would not increase the risk of being eaten. Then again it is not clear to me at least that sleeping puts an animal in danger. If some animals are awake at the time of day that their predators sleep, that would give them more freedom to move around and search for food or mate. If those animals can sleep safely enough, sleep may even be an advantage to them (though that would be the sleep of their predators, rather than their own and it would be harder to show how predators themselves would benefit from that).

Please understand I'm not proposing that sleep is indeed an energy-saving mechanism. The argument about hibernating animals is strong enough I think. It's just that the logic of the quoted proposition above strikes me as, well, wrong. I guess the quoted passage needs a citation, then? Or even removal altogether? Stassa (talk) 14:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The entire section "Functions" needs be modernized and shortened. It should cite reviews and/or textbooks, not small basic research studies. It's been said that sleep is of the brain, by the brain and for the brain and I doubt that predator or prey has much to do with it. The needed rewrite will be a project for someone some day. (Maybe you?) - Hordaland (talk) 16:22, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Any argument that can't be tested experimentally is shaky to some degree. This argument has been used often in the literature, and seems strong enough to me to belong in the article, but I agree that it needs references.Looie496 (talk) 16:28, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Aha! There you are, Looie. You're the one who can re-write the entire Functions section! - Hordaland (talk) 17:22, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the sentence means that you could preserve energy by just resting (not moving, hiding), instead of actually sleeping. That would indeed reduce the energy consumption (compared to moving around or doing whatever else) but also reduce the risk of being eaten, because one can still be fully alert and be on the run if need arises. If you're sleeping you probably don't notice your predator until it's too late. So the sentence sais that the reason for sleeping cannot be energy consumption alone. --PaterMcFly (talk) 17:02, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't know if this is anywhere near the right place, but rather than edit the article, here is my 2 cents. I think it stands to reason that sleep can help animals avoid predation, many animals sleep at night when it would do them no good to run around in the dark with nocturnal predators around. Also that point about lions (further down) not making sense is refuted by the fact that they ARE top predator and only need to eat once a day, if that, unlike grazers that need to eat all day. I think the topic of predation/energy is best supported by Jerome Siegel of UCLA, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000723.html there is bunch of information in this article...but I lack the guts (and account) to start chopping this thing up. Predator and prey/Energy conservation is the best damned explanation of sleep I have ever come across, although i concede that sleep has some other functions too. Look at polyphasic sleep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep We don't need all the sleep we get! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.70.65.218 (talk) 04:00, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

People who never sleep?

Hello there,

I've heard about cases such this one: http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673 numerous times and never found any explanation. It seems that a human being can be deprived from sleep for years with no obvious health impact. The case above mentions a 'fever' as a reason for this long-running insomnia. I have also heard about such cases caused by head trauma. It also has been described in fiction (i.g. 'The Watchers and the Watched' by Sid Chaplin if I am not mistaken). So what do you think?

I've also heard that sleep deprivation may be used to heal some depressions. But can't find any sustainable information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.58.134.193 (talk) 11:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

There are people who sleep very little, but to my knowledge no cases of people who never sleep at all have been scientifically verified by EEG study in a sleep lab -- these are just stories as far as I know. The effect of sleep deprivation on depression is very well established. This isn't commonly used as a treatment because the depression tends to return quickly once the patient is no longer sleep-deprived. However, one of the clearest effects of antidepressant drugs (SSRIs) is to alter sleep patterns, especially by reducing REM sleep. Our articles unfortunately don't cover this material very well, but if you search on Google Scholar for "depression sleep" you'll find tons of relevant stuff. Looie496 (talk) 16:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

According to this book: Sleep deprivation, Kushida, Clete Anthony, publisher = Informa Health Care, 2005, ISBN 0824759494,

http://books.google.com/books?id=EaGWMXsR5XYC&pg=PA183&dq=isbn=0824759494&ei=3nAxStaFEIXkywScxajyBQ#PPA2,M1

microsleeps are inevitable and even though a person may not be aware of them, they can add up to an appreciable amount of sleep. - Hordaland (talk) 21:41, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Aparently Don Van Vliet stayed awake for two years once...79.78.62.102 (talk) 11:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Removal of text - explained

I've removed this recently-added text: "Most humans average 7.6 hours of sleep a night; some people get by on an incredible 15 to 30 minutes. Others may need as much as 11 hours." which was cited to Psychology In Action, Eighth Edition, Huffman, Karen (2007), page 173.

"Most humans" is very general & how would one know, worldwide? Also, the average amt of sleep for all humans is uninteresting, as age plays such a big role. The assertion that "some people get by on an incredible 15 to 30 minutes," aside from the hardly encyclopedic "incredible", requires a better source than an entry-level psych textbook which, btw, has been criticized for being too US-centric. Needing "as much as 11 hours" is hardly a lot, as infants may need 18. Either the textbook is uncarefully written or the citing of it is. - Hordaland (talk) 01:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree to your removal, the 15 minutes is really hardly believable. Maybe it was supposed to mean "at once" (but multiple times a day). Someone requiring 15 mins of sleep per day in the long term is ... well, interesting ;-) --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 13:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Waking up

'Waking up' redirects to this page, however there is no specific information about the physiological and psychological processes of waking up anywhere on the page. Should this be added as a section? --90.198.9.109 (talk) 14:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting proposal. Surely there must have been research specifically on waking up, though I don't recall seeing anything that narrow. There's been some lately about how different chronotypes function and feel upon waking and throu the day. For example, here. See also sleep inertia and wakefulness. But what/how exactly is the process of waking up? - Hordaland (talk) 08:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is a tremendous amount of information on this -- PMID 12531132 is the best source I can find. Looie496 (talk) 19:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Fumes which awake you 100 %

Is there an "alarm clock" which has a harmless liquid (or gaseous) substance inside which - when released as fume (or gas) at preset time - immediately awakes you fully.

Substance which affects central nervous system when it enters bloodstream trough lungs. Substance which simply MUST affect you that way at a chemical level - removing whatever makes you sleepy and delirious - sort-of an antidote (a "sleep detoxification"); so in a matter of seconds you are fully aware just as you are in the middle of the day and you simply get up.

The place to ask questions that aren't related to improving an article is Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 17:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Where is Stage N4?

I think this is a question someone has added to the article rather than a part of the article, so I've moved Where is Stage N4? from the article to here. ϢereSpielChequers 13:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This question comes up so often that the article probably ought to address it explicitly. Looie496 (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The article already says "...resulted in several changes, the most significant being the combination of stages 3 and 4 into Stage N3. The revised scoring was published in 2007 as The AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events. - Hordaland (talk) 07:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Archiving

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep the last ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 21:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think 30 days is too short given the activity level here -- I'd suggest at least two months and perhaps even six months. With that caveat, I'd say go for it. Looie496 (talk) 22:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 18:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Basis of phenomena

What if being awake is the phenomena and sleep is what we truly are? --Jay(Talk) 16:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

This page should only be used for discussing possible ways to improve the sleep article. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 19:05, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Natural versus cultural

Sleep = stated as natural, however sleep is cultural defined. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.194.101.121 (talk) 04:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you justify that statement on the basis of anything that has been published? Looie496 (talk) 17:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

"Hours by age" chart

I've got a serious problem with even including this chart. It's based on a single 'source,' which is an internet article written by 4 authors, none considered an international expert in sleep research. There is NO research, not 1 citation, presented to support the "average" sleep #'s presented; it is all anecdotal. (In fact, average world adult sleep appears to be more like 6.5-7.5 hrs. according to a few studies I quickly found. Presentation of this single, unsourced chart on the Wiki page makes it appear to be "the" authoritative chart of optimal/average sleep for all ages. And people might rely on this chart to make lifestyle changes and/or child-rearing choices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.83.70.117 (talk) 06:53, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Those are reasonably accurate figures that are presented in medical sleep text such as Principles and Practices of Sleep Medicine, Sleep Research Society Slides, Atlas of Clincal Sleep Medicine, etc. We could only be so lucky for people to use these figures to make lifestyle changes and/or child-rearing choices... especially child-rearing choices. Cronides2 (talk) 21:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Sleep in non-humans

I propose that the the phrase "lower order animals" in the "sleep in non-humans" section be removed. There's no such thing as "lower" animals, scientifically speaking. Not even insects can scientifically or factually be referred to as "lower animals." There are humans and non-humans. When people say "more evolved" or "lower animals," Darwin wakes up in his grave and sheds a wee little tear. Askantik (talk) 15:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. The phrase bothers me too. How to define lower-order: animals who can't even fly nor navigate as well as bees, for example?

(-; Hordaland (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Hordaland: I think the definition you're looking for is 'more complex', a good measure of which is the transcriptosome or better still proteome (both well-worth looking-up if you're scientifically-minded.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neostratus (talk • contribs) 19:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Genetics Section needs improvement or removal

I just made an edit to that section. It was/is poor. There in no real info there. It sited examples as fact, when they clearly where not to be presented that way.

The source is terrible, just a "by line" really. it was written in 2009 about a study completed in 2001 with a factoid about insomnia statistics from 2006 to keep it from being too dated.

Also the inclusion of the specific gene, not sited BTW, is irrelevant to the article unless this section becomes vastly more in depth. It was also placed in a confusing manner and linked to a wiki page that is serving as a place holder.

So, fix it or nix it? I doubt it will be missed. Ken Zug (talk) 08:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KwZug (talk • contribs) 08:52, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Dreaming

According to Wilson & McNaughton (1994) Reactivation of hippocampal ensemble memories during sleep, Science, 265, 676-679, there is a correlation between neural activity recorded during awakened state and during the sleep afterwards (tested on rats). This suggests that the brain is processing the information gained during the day, and possibly reactivates the fresh memories to update the synaptic connection in neocortex, which requires iterative learning. Is this theory worth mentioning in the article? Niky cz (talk) 16:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I've heard of that. Interesting stuff. I don't think there is room for it in Sleep. Maybe better in Dream, Sleep and learning or Sleep and Memory. --Hordaland (talk) 17:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Nonpharmocological sleep disorder treatments: white noise

I added a 2002 article Evidence based complementary intervention for insomnia about white noise. The article doesn't have a ton of support so it would be nice to find more information. There's not many studies: Forquer & Johnson's Continuous White Noise to Reduce Sleep Latency and Night Wakings in College Students had only 4 people, and a couple reviews (The use of alternative medicine for the treatment of insomnia in the elderly and Nonpharmacologic techniques for promoting sleep) don't seem to mention much about it in their abstracts; I may try to get a hold of the full papers. I began using an air filter in my room to provide white noise and I've been waking up substantially more rested. II | (t - c) 06:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

sleep naked

where should I add the sleep Preferences like sleep in pj,sleep naked and ext. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teluna (talk • contribs) 08:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Article presumes that sleep is necessary

I don't see any hard evidence proving that sleep is essential for human survival. But this article goes on to declare 'optimal amounts' and to discuss 'sleep debt'. Very presumptuous if you ask me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.14.106 (talk) 20:49, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

---

There is plenty of evidence that sleep deprivation has adverse effects... just do a quick search in Pubmed you'll find lots of articles. Gould80 (talk) 08:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Sleep graph

The graph (midnight to 6 am) doesn't show a normal night's sleep. For example are there only two N4 stages in a normal night's sleep? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.61.61.161 (talk) 06:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Polar day/night

Is anyone familiar with any research about the effect of 24-hour sun or lack of sun (midnight sun/polar night) on sleep, or on other aspects of physiology? I didn't see any discussion of it in this article, and midnight sun and polar night have only brief, unreferenced sections about it. I'm especially interested if effects differ significantly between visitors to the polar regions, people who have lived there for several years, people who grew up there, and people who have a long ancestry from the region (Inuit, Sami, etc.). StephenHudson (talk) 20:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

REM atonia & sleep paralysis

Should there be any mention of the possible relationship between the atonia occurring in REM sleep and the phenomenon of sleep paralysis? Not being an expert on the subject, I am not certain if they are as related as my own experiences would indicate. 216.82.142.13 (talk) 20:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Restructuring of Sleep Article Space

The sleep related article space neeeds a lot of restructuring. For example, the orphan page titled Somnology has good stuff but uses older termninology - see my comment on Talk:Somnology . Clearly Sleep is a great title for a "gateway" or intro article into the study of sleep and other areas related to it. As a gateway? (my term, is there an official WP one?) article it should reference a wide range of other WP pages. Perhaps, these kinds of articles should be titled XXXX_An Introduction where XXXX is the subject area. Codwiki (talk) 13:48, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia articles arent given titles like that because they have to be things that people would search for or type in an address bar. Lots of people will type Sleep, not many will type Sleep: an Introduction. Also there's the fact that a lot of people will get to this article by following links from other articles, and those will be going to the title sleep, so it would have to remain as a redirect anyway. I don't mean to be discouraging though, I would like to hear your ideas for rewriting the content of Somnology. Or were you just directing that comment at the titles of the articles? —Soap— 02:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Skin renewal?

I've heard that a 3 hour period, from 10pm-1am or 11pm-2am, is the time when skin cell renewal and regeneration is greatest during sleep. Is this true? Are there any medical studies showing evidence for it? Wsmss (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Ontogenesis

Can more information be added to this section? How much sleep depravation causes the ill effects mentioned? Wsmss (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

sleep as affected by the surface slept on

any studies about sleeping on a cement floor with no pads, compared to deep soft mattresses? there may be some different impacts on brain and body, as well as sleep results being altered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.122.94 (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Merge?

It should be noted here that there is a merge suggestion on the page Sleep (non-human) that that article should be merged into this one. I've started a discussion there, where I disagree with the proposal. --Hordaland (talk) 07:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

replys: yes i think so too, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.116.134.19 (talk • contribs) 20:24, 22 October 2012‎

Anon 206.116.134.19: Please don't blank this article. That prior merge request was closed with unanimous consensus being against. Feel free to start a new merge discussion, but wait to see if the consensus has changed before attempting to move any content. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Article on historical sleep cycles

• Hegarty, Stephanie. "The myth of the eight-hour sleep." BBC. 22 February 2012.

WhisperToMe (talk) 08:51, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting link. I changed CNN to BBC (I had clicked on the link). Kurtdriver (talk) 16:33, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Deep sleep and meditation

An interesting article on linking deep sleep with meditation has appeared in Speaking Tree. [2]. Should this be added in the section benefits of sleep?

117.195.64.77 (talk) 06:05, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Beauty Sleep

Shouldn't there be a page or at least a section dedicated to the concept of "beauty sleep"?--Pokelova (talk) 02:09, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

- No. The whole article is poorly written and needs some extensive editing/restructuring. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.75.54.55 (talk) 04:13, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Sleep hygiene

Should be a subsection of sleep ; afterall much of this stuff is already discussed there without using this term. Could be integrated with not too much bother because this is only a small article. Note also that Sleep hygiene is only mentioned in the see also links, should be merged into the article. Alternatively, merge to sleep disorder, where this content is also discussed. Lesion (talk) 23:00, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I can see it merged into SLEEP as a section called SLEEP HYGIENE (if the SLEEP article isn't too long already). I don't think it is appropriate for SLEEP DISORDER. (This off the top of my head. I haven't studied the 3 articles just now.) --Hordaland (talk) 12:56, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this page is very long already now that you mention it. Lesion (talk) 23:19, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Removing merge notice here and from Sleep hygiene. Hordaland (talk) 01:32, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Article needs to be updated to reflect new research on the function of sleep

The October 18th issue of Science Magazine has a paper by Maiken Nedergaard the explains the function of sleep. The wikipedia article on sleep needs to be modified to reflect this new research. In particular, the wiki article has a section called "function" that quotes a Stanford professor as saying we don't know the purpose of sleep. I'm certain he wouldn't say the same thing today. By the way, the reason all animals sleep is because it allows the brain to clear metabolites. The neurons of animals are more efficient and function faster by being physically closer together. During sleep, the cells shrink and the flow of interstitial fluid increases to clear out metabolites (waste products). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ash471 (talk • contribs) 21:58, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

That article reveals a new function of sleep, which can be added to the long list of functions that were already known. I'm all in favor of updating this article to reflect recent developments, but putting that idea forward as the function of sleep would not be the right approach. Looie496 (talk) 01:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Interesting NYT article (about the above) on cleanup of brain debris as reason for sleep, and difference between acute & chronic sleep deprivation: "It’s like the difference between a snowstorm’s disrupting a single day of trash pickup and a prolonged strike."

On work by Maiken Nedergaard, a Danish biologist who has been leading research into sleep function at the University of Rochester’s medical school (experimenting on mice), and Sigrid Veasey at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology.

Goodnight. Sleep Clean. By MARIA KONNIKOVA, JAN. 11, 2014.

--Hordaland (talk) 03:39, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

This article is great in terms of content, although it could always use more information with more references. However, this article has a greater need for proof reading and restructuring of some sentences. The intro of the article has many things that could be rewritten to sound a little more fluent. There are also many places where things could be explained with a little more depth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AliciaHuettner (talk • contribs) 21:23, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Lisaanng8289

Lisaanng8289, if you see this, please read your talk (discussion) page (click here) and follow the advice there or discuss your changes here! I will again revert your edits now. --Hordaland (talk) 17:23, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Preservation theory

The "Preservation Theory" is explained in the text as follows

QUOTE The "Preservation and Protection" theory holds that sleep serves an adaptive function. It protects the animal during that portion of the 24-hour day in which being awake, and hence roaming around, would place the individual at greatest risk UNQUOTE

But later on it states

QUOTE Moreover, the preservation theory needs to explain why carnivores like lions, which are on top of the food chain and thus have little to fear, sleep the most. It has been suggested that they need to minimize energy expenditure when not hunting.

Preservation also does not explain why aquatic mammals sleep while moving. UNQUOTE

I have one question and one observation.

The text implies that the case of the lion fail to fit the preservation theory. But if the lion is the top of its food chain, surely it can afford to spend more time resting and sleeping. Far from not fitting the theory, it would seem to me that the high percentage of time spent by lions sleeping is quite to be expected. So why does the edit seem to imply it does fit the theory?

The observation I have to make is that a simple google search on the question "do fish sleep" revealed simple answers that (a) fish do not close their eyes and (b) some fish do spend times at rest and often in a safe place (tucked in rocks) and (c) that some fish are assumed to sleep only because they spend some time not moving. Given these three observations from scientific sources, the statement in the article that "Preservation also does not explain why aquatic mammals sleep while moving" would not appear to be conguent with known facts because it implies that there is a parallel between sleep in fish and that in mammals and that fish move during "sleep" when the definition of "fish sleep" seems to be "periods when they are not moving, or not moving so much). I move in my sleep, but not very far!

Should the text be changed? --HuntersMoon22 (talk) 18:12, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Restored content

A minor bit of content and its source was removed with a note that the source was not science based... well... it wasn't about science, it was about a holiday practice. A quick search shows a number of other sources that agree. Perhaps adding a source more in keeping with the removing editor's expectations of WP sourcing.Unfriend14 (talk) 02:11, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Non sequitur in section on sleep and health.

Right now the article states:

"Professor Francesco Cappuccio said, "Short sleep has been shown to be a risk factor for weight gain, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes, sometimes leading to mortality; but in contrast to the short sleep-mortality association, it appears that no potential mechanisms by which long sleep could be associated with increased mortality have yet been investigated. Some candidate causes for this include depression, low socioeconomic status, and cancer-related fatigue... In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around seven hours per night is optimal for health, and a sustained reduction may predispose to ill health.""

This quote may make some sense in context, but it doesn't out of context. If health problems affect people's sleep requirements, then seven hours per day is an effect of good health, and there is nothing there to suggest doing without more is a cause of good health. 71.191.165.124 (talk) 03:52, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Bad Analogy?

The following phrase (in the "Functions" section) is unsupported by the Origin of Language article: "analogous to the larynx, which controls the passage of food and air, but descended over time to develop speech capabilities"192.249.47.204 (talk) 19:12, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Stages

I don't know why we're recounting the stages in back-to-back sections, but I put links for K-complexes and sleep spindles in the first section, where I was annoyed not to find them. They're linked below, too, but there's no reason to leave us in suspense for redundant organizational reasons. It'd be better to have the stages in just 1 section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nimblecymbal (talk • contribs) 21:26, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The article is greatly in need of restructuring. --Hordaland (talk) 00:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I would very much like to know what someone's heart rate is during the 4 preREM stages. Can someone who knows enlighten us? I've searched the internet, I found articles that tell us that hearts rate 'speeds up' or 'slows down', or provides an average across all stages, and articles about heart rate variability, but not a simple average beats per minute per stage (or normal range). Thanks to anyone who can supply this information. FreeFlow99 (talk) 09:20, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Anthropology of sleep Section

Recent article: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many-myths-of-paleo-sleeping/410707/ appears to debunk the single source for this entire section (137 - Carol M. Worthman and Melissa K. Melby. "6. Toward a comparative developmental ecology of human sleep" (PDF). A comparative developmental ecology (PDF). Emory University.).

75.157.128.74 (talk) 20:17, 15 November 2015 (UTC)mrp Nov15201575.157.128.74 (talk) 20:17, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 December 2015

please change "During slow-wave sleep, humans secrete bursts of growth hormone." to "The hypothalamic pituitary axes in the human body activates the release of growth hormone during the Slow-Wave Sleep which allows for growth and repair in the body." because this gives more insight as to how this occurs. Kblackmoore (talk) 01:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Eteethan(talk) 12:25, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 January 2016

Sleep researcher here,

on wiki/sleep please see the following sentence in the Physiology section:

" REM sleep is associated with dreaming, desynchronized and faster brain waves, loss of muscle tone, and suspension of homeostasis.[4] "

In this sentence there are 4 claims 1) REM is associated with dreaming 2) desynchronized and faster brain waves 3) loss of muscle tone 4) suspension of homeostasis

As a person with some personal knowledge I know 1-3 are true. 4 I am not sure. More importantly though this sentence is supposedly backed up by reference #4, but if you read reference 4 only claim number 1 is referenced explicitly.

I recommend the following: a) Place the reference marker to reference 4 after the first statement that "REM sleep is associated with dreaming". b) Do nothing for the subsequent 2 statements (they are probably referenced somewhere) c) for claim 4, suspension of homeostasis, I am not aware of this and would like someone to place a [need reference] next to this last claim.

I could alternatively perform this same edit if given access to the page.

Best regards,

Eldritter (talk) 23:37, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Done Moved citation ahead of "suspension of homeostasis" and added cn tag to "suspension of homeostasis" --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 04:56, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 February 2016

In the REM section I suggest (1) to move a sentence "One approach to understanding the role of sleep is to study the deprivation of it.[21]" to the beginning of the paragraph starting with "The study of REM deprivation began with William Dement more than fifty years ago."; (2) to create a link to the page referring to William C. Dement; (3) to change the before mentioned sentence to "The study of REM deprivation began with William C. Dement [link] in late 1950-ies." Andris Jansons (talk) 08:33, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Done Everything except the "1950-ies" thing. "1950's" is normal English. Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 21:02, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Individuals lose consciousness rather than sleep?

This is the first time I post to a talk page, so I hope I do it right. The following statements are presented in the introduction without context: "Sleep is sometimes confused with unconsciousness. This is because some individuals, including non-humans, lose consciousness rather than sleep." I was considering adding a 'citation needed' tag, but since the page is semi-protected, and since I feel more than just a source is lacking, perhaps it is fitting to bring it up for discussion. Under what circumstances do individuals lose consciousness in such a way that it is confused with sleep? Bomeister (talk) 13:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

That confusing wording was inserted yesterday by Trisha Gaurav (talk · contribs). I have returned to the material that was previously in the lead. Perhaps something along these lines would be good, but the wording would need to be improved. Anyway, thanks for drawing attention to the problem.Looie496 (talk) 16:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 March 2016

Please remove the picture thumb|Sleep is associated with a state of muscle relaxation and reduced perception of environmental stimuli., as no information can be drawn from a photo, or a graphical impression, of a person 'sleeping' in becoming informed about the topic 'sleep'. Rwroot (talk) 17:34, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Images depicting animals sleeping seem useful to me... EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 March 2016

Add reference to http://sleep-in-arts.eu/Risorse/Cap01EN.pdf, under the section 'Sleep in Art' and remove the following pictures under the same: File:Auf dem Ofen 1895.jpg|Zwei schlafende Mädchen auf der Ofenbank, Albert Anker, 1895 File:William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Lullaby (1875).jpg|Lullaby, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1875 File:Flaming June, by Frederic Lord Leighton (1830-1896).jpg|Flaming June by Frederic Lord Leighton, ~1895 File:Carel Fabritius - De poort bewaker (1654).jpg|The Sentry by Carel Fabritius, 1654 File:Paul Klimsch Schlafender Jaguar.jpg|Sleeping Jaguar, Paul Klimsch File:Chrapek, the Sleepy one... (3734650615).jpg|Shrapek (Snorer), Wrocław's dwarfs File:Museo del Prado - Goya - Caprichos - No. 43 - El sueño de la razon produce monstruos.jpg|The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya, 1799 as they appear to be arbitrarily choosen and would therefore contribute no structured organisation to the section. Also please remove the following pictures: thumb|People napping on a train [[:File:WLA metmuseum Bronze statue of Eros sleeping 7.jpg|thumb|right|Bronze statue of Eros sleeping, 3rd century BC–early 1st century AD]] [[:File:Pieter Bruegel d. Ä. 037.jpg|thumb|The Land of Cockaigne by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1567.]] [[:File:Japanese Macaques sleeping.JPG|thumb|Sleeping Japanese macaques.]], as they provide no usefull information in becoming informed about the topic 'sleep'. Rwroot (talk) 18:36, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:33, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Rheum

Can I suggest someone with an account adds a link to Rheum in 'See also'? I've already added it to the (not semi-protected) Human eye, which is the other place I looked before searching on "Eye crust." (The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

 Done --Hordaland (talk) 19:30, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

link in intro for 'industrialized altered sleep' doesn't mention industrialized altered sleep at all

The reference after the sentence in the introduction, "Industrialization and artificial light have substantially altered human sleep habits in the last 100 years", doesn't mention industrialization or artificial light and consequent altered human sleep habits at all. Maybe the reference should be moved to previous sentences? UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 18:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

You are right. I've removed it. I didn't add "citation needed", as industrialization's effects are covered and sourced further down the page. The source was not a particularly valuable one. --Hordaland (talk) 20:50, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Bodily functions during sleep

Hello!

I am not an expert on sleep but have more than a passing interest in the subject. I think it might help improve the article if a section is inserted about the bodily functions during sleep. For example the heart rate, muscle contraction rate, blood flow rates, and how the internal organs behave during sleep. This is just a thought.

Cheers.

Bluesky10 (talk) 10:49, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Streamlining the article: recent changes and next steps

Hi User:Mathnerd314159, User:Zefr, and anyone else active on this article. I appreciate recent efforts which have been made to streamline the article. At the same time I am concerned that we should not skimp on the Physiology section, which should be the essential section in an article concerning a process which is fundamentally biological. As you know, physiology is more than neuroscience, and I think that such paragraphs as the following really belong on the main page about Sleep:

Especially during non-REM sleep, the brain uses significantly less energy during sleep than it does in waking. In areas with reduced activity, the brain restores its supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the molecule used for short-term storage and transport of energy. (Since in quiet waking the brain is responsible for 20% of the body's energy use, this reduction has an independently noticeable impact on overall energy consumption.) During slow-wave sleep, humans secrete bursts of growth hormone. All sleep, even during the day, is associated with secretion of prolactin.

Also, the article structure has gotten a little weird, with "Awakening", which used to be a subset of "Stages", now serving as the über-header which encloses Circadian Rhythm.

I propose to improve the section on physiology of sleep—ideally using some new sources which expand on physiological phenomena throughout the organism—and to trim and restructure some less essential parts of the article. The Circadian rhythm for example is a closely related but distinct process which is explained pretty well on its own page. "Nap", and maybe "Genetics" as it is presently written, can be subsumed under "Distribution".

Actually the following section, "Sleep homeostasis, deprivation and optimization", is also a bit redundant with "Distribution" and could perhaps be merged.

Meanwhile the sections on memory processing and dreaming could probably be trimmed. Maybe there should be a larger "Functions" section.

"Effect of food and drugs on sleep" could be its own article — what do people think about this?

Do the basics of this plan sound OK?

Cheers, groupuscule (talk) 04:16, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Some topics I want to explore/add:

• The history of sleep research,[3]; book has great reviews[4][5].
• Meditation is a substitute for sleep,[6] and on a biological level they're hard to distinguish,[7] as meditation practitioners will go into the various stages of biologically-defined "sleep" during their meditation.[8]
• UK is the most sleep-deprived nation[9]
• Philosophical debates on the natures of consciousness during sleep[10]
• Economic correlations of sleep[11].

I'm not really sure where they'd go in the current article. And your plan for the article isn't very enlightening in that regard. The basic principle seems to be WP:UNDUE but that just kind of punts the problem to figuring out what the mainstream academic view is. Fortunately enough though, I'm in graduate school, thus technically an academic, so it's only my view that counts. (right? isn't that how that policy works?)

You mention you want to add back the quote on prolactin. Online, the only reliable sources prolactin is mentioned in the context of sleep are medical textbooks[12] and "popular science" blogs.[13] A 2008 review on prolactin and REM sleep finds "a paucity of evidence".[14] There's continuing research on the subject [15] [16], and it deserves mention, despite WP:MEDRS, but I don't think the main top-level article on sleep is the place to go into such detail. There's a similar quote in Prolactin: "Prolactin levels peak during REM sleep and in the early morning", which seems more like the proper starting point for any detailed discussion.

Particularly since there's a news article on the interactions between hormones and sleep, it's quite true that hormones deserve a few words in a subsection somewhere sleep-related. So that's why I stuck it in the neuroscience article; if someone really needs that much detail, they can find it. I'm not quite sure what purpose you want to serve by putting it back in the main article. I can point however to the purpose that would not be served. There are some crazy sleep-deprived people,[17] the "Polyphasic Sleep Society" [18], who seem to have some kind of religious attraction to prolactin. Whereas the Wikipedia article says that prolactin is "a protein influential in over 300 processes in vertebrates, best known for enabling female mammals to produce milk", this blog post author says prolactin is "a hormone producing a feeling of calm and well-being" (of course with no citation). These Polyphasic Sleep crackpots have caused me and no doubt hundreds or thousands of others uncountable sleep-deprived nights of pain and suffering, and by putting the relationship between prolactin and sleep in the darkest, most obscure corner of Wikipedia I can find, while keeping the polyphasic sleep article describing the ineffectiveness of polyphasic sleep front and center, I can give them the encyclopedic equivalent of the finger, and ideally also spare others from such suffering.

Generally, the article seems to suffer from WP:RECENTISM, a lot of research findings and not much perspective. Typically history is the easiest way to get perspective. The notion of waking up has been around a lot longer than the circadian rhythm, hence why I made it a header. Same for naps and dreams, they've been around for centuries & have their own articles, but should get a header too, as the "see also" section doesn't allow for discussion. The rest of the stuff (physiology, quality, distribution, memory, disorders, nutrition, etc.) all fall under the general heading of "sleep research", a much more recent phenomenon. I was thinking Neuroscience of sleep might turn into a sleep research article, as it starts out right ("The study of sleep from a neuroscience perspective grew to prominence from the second half of the twentieth century.") but it's already pretty full at 48k, and I want to make that page even harder to find, so maybe making a "sleep research" page in the middle (so link trail to prolactin is sleep -> sleep research -> neuroscience of sleep#relationship between hormones and sleep discussion) is a good idea. The main Sleep article can focus on lightweight topics like philosophy, history, and economics, the Sleep research article can focus on all matters of reliable science, and all the untested theories can get dumped into the Neuroscience article (where they belong; neuroscience is barely one step removed from pseudoscience ☺).

So, to answer your questions: (1) yes, there needs to be a new article (2) no, your basics are all wrong, go back and check your axioms. --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 19:51, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, I see where you're coming from and I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble with sleep partisans. I had no idea prolactin was so controversial! (To be very picky, however, the statement you linked about "paucity of evidence" is about whether prolactin regulates sleep—not whether the body secretes it during sleep.) I like your idea of distinguishing longstanding perspectives on sleep from modern sleep research and I agree that many parts of the current article could be forked off. Still, I am hoping there is a place for physiological essentials (systemic, not just neurological: circulation, respiration, etc.) People have been studying these phenomena for decades if not centuries and I think it would be reasonable to include the most solid findings. The book chapter you linked (Brandenberger, Simon & Follenius) looks like a great source (not least because it distinguishes the effects of sleep from the effects of circadian rhythm). Also, it seems like we agree that some parts of the present article are too big and stray too far from the heart of our topic. groupuscule (talk) 21:18, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs work (and am sorry that I won't have time to participate the next few months). I just want to be a bit "difficult" right now and disagree whole-heartedly with the following sentence above: "The notion of waking up has been around a lot longer than the circadian rhythm." No, while the word 'circadian' is only a good half-a-century old, the phenomenon has existed as long as there has been life on the planet!

Glad to see some (otherwise) serious discussion here. Good luck with the work! --Hordaland (talk) 21:58, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

A possibly helpful page where Professor Russell G. Foster (University of Oxford) and Professor Joseph S. Takahashi (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) are interviewed about the research areas sleep and circadian rhythms and their discovery of each other: http://www.fens.org/News-Activities/Featured-Articles/The-Brain-Conference-2015/ -- Hordaland (talk) 14:04, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. In my opinion, at present we are giving too much space to (the physiological processes associated with) circadian rhythm and too little to the physiology of sleep itself—especially since there is a separate page with good coverage of circadian rhythm and not a page covering the physiology of sleep. However in deference to Mathnerd and in the interest of constructing something better, rather than restore the section describing either of the phases individually, I would like to construct something new. (Probably we do need a section each on "NREM" and "REM"; probably not a section each on NREM1, NREM2, etc.) As I mentioned above it's especially useful to have sources which discuss experimental control of circadian rhythm in sleep research.

Reading the site you linked makes me think that the sleep/health connection could get more play, including some issues related to sleep deprivation, which, although it has its own article, could be highlighted a little more here. groupuscule (talk) 14:26, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I regrouped a little bit into bigger headings. I'm not wedded to these and I hope other people will give their comments. The goal is to get like info with like and maybe organize things a little more logically for the reader. A couple thoughts along the way:

• Sleep cycle currently redirects to circadian rhythm, which is more or less wrong. The standard referent of "sleep cycle" is the ultradian rhythm during sleep, lasting about an hour and a half, and including both NREMS and REMS. I hate to say it, but Sleep cycle should probably be its own article. Maybe it could be covered in at Neuroscience of sleep, I don't know.
• I don't know the best name for the section on "homeostatic" sleep / sleep debt / "Process S". Using "homeostatic" may be confusing because we are elsewhere discussing the suspension of homeostasis during REM, in a more direct meaning of the term (thermoregulation, blood pressure and oxygenation, etc.) "Homeostatic" sleep regulation in the sense of this section has to do with a single neurochemical process moving in one direction or another. "Sleep debt" isn't perfect because it focuses on only one part of the issue. (As defined here, "sleep debt" refers only to the process in more or less extreme disequilibrium.) "Process S" sounds jargony but at the same time it's precise since it was made up for this purpose. (And then there's the question of whether to call the circadian process "Process C" for parallelism and added scientism.)
• "Quality" is now grouped in with Timing (as this is half the definition given) but this could change. It could be its own top-level category, or somewhere else. It could probably be expanded or combined with other material that's now missing.
• The Timing section is big but I think it's preferred to group things accurately rather than have a bunch of unclassified top-level headers which actually deal with different aspects of the same issue.
• I removed the section called "Ontogenesis" because it's a hypothesis about REM sleep only — and one of many — and covered at the page on REM. At the same time, the regrouping has revealed (to me anyway) that there is a shortage of material on the functions of sleep. (OK I just checked and see this was recently moved to Neuroscience of sleep. Honestly, I don't see how material on wound healing belongs there and I recommend that much of the section on function be moved back.)

OK I hope everybody is having a good spring (or, I suppose, fall) and getting as much sleep as they want. Regards, groupuscule (talk) 18:11, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

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Tense problem under Process C subsection

Currently reads "Process C counteracts the homeostatic drive for sleep during the day (in diurnal animals) and to augment it at night." Should be "and augments it at night." Orbitalsquabbles (talk) 15:11, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Ugh, that's not even called a tense problem, I'm going back to bed Orbitalsquabbles (talk) 15:12, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 15:17, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Sleep is good for health. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.142.176.79 (talk) 23:39, 28 March 2018 (UTC)