Chapter 9 Commentary

Janna Frank

1 The short section on setting and resetting the biological clock was especially interesting for me because my husband drives a truck over-the-road. His sleep is erratic at best, and he is simply moving between two time zones, as opposed to those who commute weekly from the East coast to the West coast. Shift work seemed to be most relative to his situation. The textbook points out the main disadvantage to those who work abnormal hours is their inability to sleep the number of hours their body requires- mostly because they must sleep during the day, which is difficult to do in any case. Making a room completely dark helps, but as the text states, circadian rhythms are often difficult to adjust if those completely dark and very bright extremes are not used. Ultimately, there are many more instances in which people are required to change their hours drastically on a regular basis. 2 Before reading this chapter, I had never heard of the neurotransmitter orexin. It seems to play an extremely significant role in wakefulness and alertness. As the textbook explains, the amount of orexin in an individuals brain determines their ability to stay awake. I am particularly interested in the implications (Im sure there are plenty which are refutable or poorly researcher) this information suggest as a type of stimulant to help those who require long periods of time where they have to be not only awake, but alert as well (doctors, law enforcement, and especially military). All the energy supplements on the market creating a billion dollar industry have yet to be approved by the FDA, and I believe this is a significant indicator there is a possibility of another route with less unnatural ingredients. 3 Sleep and memory is another correlation which interests me. Ive always heard the term sleep on it. Apparently, I must have heard this before high school, because I frequently waited to study and do homework until shortly before going to sleep. At least, this is how I justified it to my parents: I did better on tests if I didnt look at the material until the night before at bedtime. Usually this was the case, as Ive found my working memory is weak in many ways. Ive had better sleep more regularly over the years than a lot of people I know. However, I had periods of time when I found it very difficult to fall asleep, because I couldnt turn my brain off. I wonder if, once I fell asleep, those thoughts (which usually presented as a domino effect) either weeded out the unimportant information, or simply connected the related thoughts so they could be routed to the appropriate areas of my brain.