Learning Outcomes

By the end of this portion of the course, the students will be able to:

  • Describe the relationship between amount of sleep and mental wellbeing
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of discussed strategies for dealing with sleep deprivation

Introduction

Adjusting to university student life tends to be an exciting but demanding process. You get to meet a ton of new people, discover a plethora of clubs and societies to join, and learn how your post-secondary course structures and expectations differ from those in high school. The work-life balance you have gotten used to suddenly becomes challenged as your workload becomes more and more overwhelming.

At some point, you find yourself sitting at your desk at midnight, looking at the clock and questioning whether going to bed now is worth missing out on studying for that big test tomorrow. You yawn for the twentieth time and are struggling to keep your eyes open, but there is still so much left to do, and you cannot afford to lose that precious time on something you could just catch up on during the weekend. Right?

Activity 1

Please read the following article:

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=osmosis

As you have now learned, sleep is not only essential for your cognitive performance but is also crucial for your overall wellbeing. Because physiological and mental health are intertwined, a disturbance in one will inevitably affect the other. As an example, McKallip mentions that myelin sheaths are protein and lipid layers that facilitate the firing of our neurons, which is how the different components of our nervous system communicate with one another (2019). There is an area in our brain called the prefrontal cortex (PFC) which plays a huge role in functions such as impulse control, planning, and memory, and attention. One of the structures our PFC interacts with very closely is called the amygdala – an area best known for processing emotional information (Yoo et al., 2007). When myelination in the PFC decreases due to sleep deprivation, it becomes more difficult for it to impact amygdala’s activity, lowering our ability to control negative emotions such as anger and fear. According to research conducted on mice by Liu and others, reduction of myelin sheath in the PFC can also cause social withdrawal, which is often observed in individuals with autism, anxiety, schizophrenia, and depression.

Are you now convinced of how detrimental the consequences of sacrificing sleep really are?

Activity 2

So, what can we do to maintain a proper sleep hygiene?

Watch this video to find out!

Activity 3

Annotate this page together with 2-3 other people to answer at least one of the following questions:

  1. What are some other ways in which physiological changes covered by McKallip (e.g., increased ghrelin secretion, lower glucose tolerance) can be linked to mental health issues? Describe at least one.
  2. Choose one of the strategies for sleep improvement encountered throughout this portion of the course and explain why it can be difficult to implement. What can be done to help make the implementation easier?
  3. How effective do you feel the current promotion of sleep hygiene is in our society? Explain your response and suggest ways in which sleep education could be further improved.

It is recommended that you utilize resources outside of this course to answer these questions. However, make sure to add a hyperlink to show where you have gotten the information from.

After completing your group’s annotations, make sure to comment (individually) on at least one annotation thread made by a different group. Avoid simply stating “I agree/disagree” or summarizing their annotation. Instead, try to contribute to the conversation by providing your own insight, asking new questions, or introducing new sources of information. Your group and individual responses should be 150 – 200 words long.

References

Liu, J., Dietz, K., DeLoyht, J.M., Pedre, X., Kelkar, D., Kaur, J., Vialou, V., Lobo, M.K., Dietz, D.M., Nestler, E.J., Dupree, J., & Casaccia, P. (2012). Impaired adult myelination in the prefrontal cortex of socially isolated mice. Nature Neuroscience, 15(12), 1621–1623. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3263

McKallip, R. (2019). Pillow Talk: the science behind the all-nighter. Osmosis Magazine, 2019(2), 1–3. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=osmosis

TED [Sleeping with Science]. (2020, September 2). 6 tips for better sleep [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0kACis_dJE

Yoo, S.S., Gujar, N., Hu, P., Jolesz, F.A., & Walker, M.P. (2007). The human emotional brain without sleep — a prefrontal amygdala disconnect. Current Biology, 17(20), R877–R878. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2007.08.007