Question

Discuss the stages of consciousness including wake, interruptions of consciousness, and the stages of sleep. Summarize what a person’s circadian rhythm is and provide examples of how a person can disturb the internal schedule. Include a scenario where time was adjusted significantly (or you did not have a sense of time) and how your body was affected. For example, if you got stuck in a place where there were no cues about the passage of time; you worked the nightshift for a week; you took a long flight into a different day, etc. How would you try to restore your circadian rhythm? Explain.

Answer 1

States of consciousness are a subjective perceptual experience which is marked by a state of being aware especially of something within oneself. it allows us to perceive one's environment, survey potential problems, identify goals and make decisions. Consciousness in other words is a stage of attention.

At the other end of the consciousness continuum are unconscious states such as sleep. Sleep involves a progression of individual into different stages or levels of brain activity. These stages (as well as other states of consciousness) are characterized by different brain waves: Beta; Alpha; Theta; and Delta. Beta waves typically occur during wakeful states while the Alpha waves are found to occur in situations of meditation, hypnosis, and light sleep, while both Theta and Delta waves occur in deep sleep states.

• STAGE 1: in the first stage of sleep, a Person moves from being awake to being asleep, has increased Theta waves and decreased alpha and Beta waves. An average person takes about 30 minutes to move to stage 2 of sleep. It is easy to awaken someone from this stage.
• STAGE 2: the Person begins to experience sleep spindles, K-complexes, Theta, and Delta waves. Moreover, the heart rate and breathing slows, and the body temperature decreases.
• STAGE 3: here, the Person has increased Delta waves and is now in a deep sleep.
• STAGE 4: This is a very deep sleep also characterized by increased delta waves. This is also known as slow wave sleep stage as the EEG shows slow moving , low frequency brain waves.
• REM sleep: The Person enters REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. During which the eyes move rapidly back and forth under closed eyelids. This is also the stage in which dreaming and consolidation of memory occurs. In this stage, our heart rate and breathing becomes faster, the blood pressure rises and fluctuations occur in the body temperature . Our brain activity is almost the same as when we are awake, however, there is a temporary paralysis of the limbs causing na inability to move until one moves to a different stage of sleep.

Our body’s ability to monitor and maintain the different stages of sleep is influenced by our internal biological clock called circadian rhythms. circadian rhythms rule our lives, regulate our sleep and tell us when to get up in the morning. However, there are certain external or environmental factors which can throw our circadian rhythms off the regular routine. For instance, I have often suffered severe grogginess after a prolonged travel due to jet lag or the inability to sleep or wake normally according to the night-day cycle of a place may exemplify how the circadian rhythms may get disturbed if we are travelling Oriental countries towards Europe and North America. The exposure to light or darkness generally causes our bodies to produce hormones, particularly melatonin, that tell us when we should be alert or asleep. As the difference in the time zone confused my internal clock, leaving me sleepless during the nights in Asia, and groggy during the daytime, I soon found a way to deal with the jet lag upon my next travel. I Try to take in some bright sunlight early in the morning for a few days at the time I have to be awake in a different country and avoid light in the evening. In this way I ensure being in a dark environment by bedtime.This change in the degree of exposure to light-darkness helps me to reset my circadian rhythms and trigger melatonin production which would help to restore my sleep cycle.