Unit 9: States of Consciousness

1.How to assess someone‘s level of consciousness

Levels of Consciousness

• Ask questions that someone should know at all times

• First responder asks questions like

  • What is your name

  • Where are you

  • What time is it

• Alert & Oriented

  • A & O x1

  • A& O x 2

Sleep Depravation

• Psychologist James Maas

• Cornell University

• following questions were used to tell sleep depravation

  • t - I need an alarm clock to wake up at the appropriate time

  • t - Its a struggel for me to get out of bed in the morning

  • f - Weekday mornings I hit the snooze bar several times to get more sleep

  • t - I feel itred, irritable, and stressed out during the weel

  • f - I have trouble concentrating and remembering

  • t - I feel slow with critical thinking, problem solving, and beinig creative

  • f - I often fall asleep watching television

  • f - I often fall asleep in boring meetings or lectures or in warm rooms

  • t - I often fall alseep after heavy meals

  • f - I often fall asleep while relaxing after dinner

  • f - I often fall asleep within five minutes of getting into bed

  • f - I often feel drowsy while driving

  • t - I often sleep extra hours on weekend mornings

  • f - I often need a nap to get through the day

  • f - I have dark circles around my eyes

    • T = 6

    • F = 9

What happens to your body when you don‘t get enough sleep

• Hormones:

  • Cortisol → stress hormone

    • Cortisol plays an important role in waking up

    • brain has effects if you are stressed all the time of don‘t get enough sleep

    • can be detrimental to our health

Increasing Sleep Quality

• How many hours of sleep do teens need? 10-12 hours

• Caffeine: should stop drinking caffeinie at about 2-3pm

• Choclate: avoid eating choclate before bed

• Wake: go to bed and wake up at the same time every day

• Sleeping-in: no sleeping in on the weekends

• Naps: are anywhere from 10-20 minutes max

  • time that won‘t‘ make you tired

  • Sleep inertia occurs when you take a 2-3 hour nap

• Food: eat at least 3 hours before bed

• Milk: a glass of milk can help you sleep

• Adults need 6-8 hours of sleep

• Exercise: Regular exercise

Theories on why people sleep

• Evolutionary Perspective:

  • Ancestor 1→gene= awake at night = walking around = falling off cliffs/getting eated by night predators = dead = not reproducing = not passing on gene of wakefulness at night

  • Ancestor 2 →(gene = sleep at night = not waling around rocks/cliffs/ getting attacked by night predators = not dying = eventually reproducing = gene passed on) x generation after generation = widespread behavior of sleeping at night

• Recuperation:

  • restore/repair brain tissue

    • sleep allows resting neurons to repair themselves

    • sleep allows unused connections to weaken

  • analogy: leaving the house to get out of the way of electricians = consciousness leaving mind for neural fix up

  • Occurs during Delta sleep

• Memory-Making:

  • Experiment:

    • people learn locations of picture cards in room with rose scent

    • sleep… slow-wave sleep = rose scent = hippocamus activated

    • next day= remembered locations of picture cards almost perfectly

  • Occurs during REM

• General Physical Growth:

  • Sleep = pituitaary gland release growth hormone

  • Age = release less growth bormone and sleep less in deep sleep

  • Occurs in Delta sleep

Circadian Rhythm

• „Circa“ - approx.

• „Dian“ - Day

• your bodys natural biological schedule

  • Superachiasmatic Nucleaus (SCN)

• Helps you go to sleep/wake up

  • Melatonin/Serotonin

EEG Machine

• way to scan the brain

• looks at function but not structure and see how the brain functions

• Beta waves → seen when your brain is awake and cognitivly doing something

  • high frequency but low ampitude

• Theta waves → seen in Stage 1 NREM sleep

  • high frequency and low amplitude

  • light level of sleep and can be awoken easily

  • Hypnagogic Sensations → hallucinations like feeling of falling or hearing sounds

    • Hypnic Jerks → quick wake up after Hypnagogic Sensations

• Sleep Spindle & K-complex - NREM 2

  • high frequenfy and low amplitude

  • brain is now trying to protect you from waking up

  • Sleep spindles & k-complex could be reactions to your brain protecting you from waking up

  • light level of sleep

• Delta Waves → NREM 3

  • lower frequency & higher amplitude

    • Delta Sleep

  • Deep sleep

    • fully feeling the affects of sleep inertia

  • Restfulness/Rejuvinating

  • Vitals

    • heart rate goes down

    • muscles relax

    • breathing rate goes down

  • Sleep disorders

    • sleep walking, night terrors, sleep apnea

• REM sleep → Rapid Eye Movement

  • transitioned back to Theta waves

  • Paradoxical sleep → brain is extremley active but this is our deepest sleep

  • Most active dreaming phase

  • Body is affectivly paralized

• 1 cycle of sleep which lasts about 90 minutes

• Go through 4-5 cycles a night

• Deep Sleep typically occurs on the first 2 cycles

  • Spend most time in Deep sleep in the first half and more time in REM in the second half of sleep

  • Body starts to produce serotonin ans Cortisol in the second half to prepare your body to wake up

  • As the night moves on, we spend less time in DELTA sleep

Sleep Disorders

• Parasomnia → technicall medical term for a sleep disorder

• Somnambulism → sleep walking

  • most often occurs during the first few hours of sleeping and in stage 3 (Delta)

  • If you have had night terrors, you are more likley to sleep walk when older

• REM Behavior Disorder

  • similar to sleep walking

  • more intense

  • is caused when there is a lack of dopamine that does not paralyize the body

    • causes people to act out their dreams

• Insomnia

  • persistent problem falling/staying asleep

  • Impacts 10% of population

  • Primary v Secondary Insomnia

  • What to do if you cannot fall asleep:

    • dont clock watch

    • get better pre-sleep routine

      • eat earlier

      • stay off screen

    • try progressive muscle relaxation

    • if you cannot fall alseep within 20 minutes of so, then get up and go

      • sit comfortable in another room untill tired

        • light exercise

        • read a book

      • no bright lights, nothing stressful

    • racing thoughts

      • do what you need to do to shut it off

        • make a to-do list before you go to bed

        • accomplish something before going to bed

• Narcolepsy

  • suffer from sleeplesness and may fall asleep at unpredictable or inappropriate times

  • Directly into REM sleep

  • Less than .001% of population

  • short on serotonin

  • treated with anti-depressants because it is for the same neuro-transmitter

    • SSRI‘s

• Sleep Apnea

  • a person stops breathing during their sleep

  • wake up momentarily, gasps for air, then falls back asleep

  • very common, especially in heavy males

  • can be fatal

• Night Terrors

  • During NREM 3 Sleep

    • Usually others aware, and child is not

  • Not a nightmare

  • Most common in children (boys) between 2-8, 40% of children

• Somniloquy

  • techniquly not a sleep disorder as it does not affect your sleep

  • can range from lo mumbling to loud yelling or coherent sentences

  • generally does not impact sleep

  • lots of people talk in their sleep

  • management

missing notes

• Opiates

  • has depressive and hallucinogenic qualities

  • agonist for endorphins

  • derived from poppy plant

  • pain-killing

  • morphine,herion,methoadone and codeine

  • all these drugs cross the placental barrier…teratogens

    • anything that negativley impacts the development of a fetus

  • mimic the effects of the brain’s own endorphins

    • these chemicals have pain releif properties and produce a felling of well bing

• Depressants

  • act on GABA receptors to produce a calming, sedating effect

• Stimulants

  • mimic the effects of Epinephrine, the nurotransmitter that triggers the sympathetic nervous system

    • supressed hunger and digestion

  • epinepherine → triggers your fight or flight

• Addiction v Dependence

  • addiction is psychological and dependence is physical

  • there is a diffrence between addiction and dependence, even though the two are used interchangeably

  • with any substance, there is a chance of addiction, there is not always a chance for dependence

• Dependency

  • the body adapts to the drug, requiring more of it to achieve a certain effect and eliciting drug-specific physical or mental symptoms if drug use is abruptly ceased

  • noticeable withdrawal symptoms when stopped

• Common Withdrawl symptoms

  • Caffeine

    • withdrawal symptoms such as fatigue, headache, irritabilitiy, inability to concentrate, sleepiness or drowsiness, stomach pain, and joint pain

Hypnosis

• What hypnosis isn’t:

  • Myth: everyone can be hypnotized

    • 10% of the population is highly hypnotizable

  • Myth: people aren’t in control of their body when they’re hypnotized

    • if you don’t want to do something, you won’t

    • hypnosis lowers your inhibition but does not stop you from resisting

  • Myth: Hypnosis is the same thing as sleep

    • it is not sleep

    • you are aware of your surroundings

  • Myth: people can’t lie when they’re hypnotized

    • no one can make you say anything that you don’t want to say

• What hypnosis is:

  • Heightened state of relaxation or focus

  • chances are, you have been in hypnosis at some point today already

    • daydreaming, being in the “zone”

Hypnotic Theories

• Role Theory

  • Hypnosis is NOT an altered state of consciousness

  • Different people have various states of hypnotic suggestibility

  • A social phenomenon where people want to beleive

  • Work better on people with richer fantasy lives

• State Theory

  • Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness

  • Dramatic health benefits

  • It works for pain best

  • will see:

    • post-hypnotic suggestibility

      • people are more likley to follow suggestions if told under hypnosis

• Ernest Hilgard

  • Dissociation Theory

    • Hypnosis actually splits our consciousness

    

    1950s - Pain control

  • “Hidden Observer”

    • part of the consciousness that is still watching over you

• Case Study #1

  • Blind student

  • hypnotized student to beleive that they were deaf

  • didn’t react to loud noises

  • whispers: “Perhaps part of you can still hear me…”

  • raised index finger

• Case Study #2

  • pain control

  • person submerged entire arm in an ice bath

  • hypnotized the person to feel no pain

  • reported no pain at all

  • when asked to raise a finger they would raise it indicating that they still felt pain