Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Tom Sawyer · 07-08-2003, 10:57 AM

I was having a conversation with some friends about sleeping yesterday. I know that if someone doesn't get REM sleep, it can cause mental problems; however one of the people there was saying that REM sleep is all that is needed to stay healthy.

He said that if you get 20 minutes of sleep every four hours, that will be enough to get you all the REM sleep you need and you can live fine with what works out to be about two hours of sleep a day. I saw something like this on an old Seinfeld episode but never really thought there was anything real to it.

If this is true, it means that REM sleep is the only one that we need and the rest of the sleep cycle is just a waste of time and only needed to space out our REM cycles during the night. Is this actually the case, or is deep sleep used for something as well? That would mean that the 20 minute sleep way of sleeping wouldn't work.

Does anyone know anything about this?

ps418 · 07-08-2003, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tom Sawyer
I was having a conversation with some friends about sleeping yesterday. I know that if someone doesn't get REM sleep, it can cause mental problems; however one of the people there was saying that REM sleep is all that is needed to stay healthy.

He said that if you get 20 minutes of sleep every four hours, that will be enough to get you all the REM sleep you need and you can live fine with what works out to be about two hours of sleep a day. I saw something like this on an old Seinfeld episode but never really thought there was anything real to it.

If this is true, it means that REM sleep is the only one that we need and the rest of the sleep cycle is just a waste of time and only needed to space out our REM cycles during the night. Is this actually the case, or is deep sleep used for something as well? That would mean that the 20 minute sleep way of sleeping wouldn't work.

Does anyone know anything about this?

Sleep deprivation causes all sorts of problems, but it is not at all clear that the lack of REM sleep is responsible for this. Certain drugs and brain injuried abolish REM sleep altogether, without producing any obvious cognitive deficits (though there may be subtle deficits that are not showing up on standard neuropsychcological tests). From Vertes and Eastman (2000):

Quote:

Of the antidepressants, the MAOIs have the strongest suppressive action on REM sleep. A number of early reports using normal and patient populations showed that MAOIs virtually completely (or completely) suppressed REM sleep for weeks to several months. In an initial study, Wyatt et al. (1969) reported that the MAOIs, isocarboxazid, pargyline hydrochloride, and mebanazine, reduced REM from about 20-25% of TST to 9.7%, 8.6% and 0.4% of TST, respectively, and that in one subject REM was virtually eliminated for two weeks.

In a subsequent report in anxious-depressed patients, Wyatt and co-workers (1971a) described the remarkable findings that the MAOI, phenelzine (Nardil), given at therapeutic doses, completely abolished REM sleep in six patients for periods of 14 to 40 days. There was a gradual decline in amounts of REM sleep for the first two weeks on the drug and a total loss of REM after 3-4 weeks. In a complementary study with narcoleptic patients, Wyatt et al. (1971b) reported that phenelzine completely abolished REM in 5 of 7 patients for the following lengths of time: 14, 19, 93, 102 and 226 days. They stated that: "The complete drug-induced suppression of REM sleep in these patients is longer and more profound than any previously described"; and further that "No adverse psychological effects were noted during the period of total rapid-eye-movement suppression".

Several other studies have similarly shown that MAOIs essentially abolish REM sleep. Akindele et al. (1970) reported that phenelzine completely eliminated REM sleep in four subjects (one normal and 3 depressed) for 2 to 8 weeks, and addressing possible behavioral consequences stated that "Far from this leading to disastrous effects on mental functions, as some might have proposed, clinical improvement began". Kupfer and Bowers (1972) showed that phenelzine abolished REM in 7 of 9 patients, and drastically suppressed it in remaining patients from pre-drug values of 23.1% and 24.8% of TST to 1.4% and 0.5% of TST, respectively. Finally, Dunleavy and Oswald (1973) reported that phenelzine eliminated REM in 22 depressed patients.

If REM sleep were involved in memory consolidation, it would seem that the total loss of REM with MAOIs for periods of several months to a year (Wyatt et al. 1969, 1971a, 1971b; Kupfer & Bowers 1972; Dunleavy & Oswald 1973) would affect memory. As indicated above, the loss of REM did not appear to be associated with any noticeable decline in cognitive functions in these largely patient populations. These studies, however, made no systematic attempt to assess the effects of MAOIs on cognition.

Other reports, however, have examined the actions of MAOIs, primarily phenelzine, on cognition/memory and described an essential lack of impairment (Rothman et al. 1962; Raskin et al. 1983; Georgotas et al. 1983, 1989). For example, Raskin et al. (1983) observed no adverse effects of phenelzine on a battery of 13 psychomotor and cognitive tasks in a heterogeneous population of 29 depressed patients. Similarly, Georgotas and colleagues (Georgotas et al. 1983, 1989) reported that elderly depressed patients given phenelzine for 2 to 7 weeks showed no alteration in several measures of cognitive function, and concluded that the lack of adverse effects with phenelzine suggests that it is preferable to TCAs (see below) in the treatment of depression in the geriatric population.

Regarding brain lesions that abolish REM:

Quote:

Although sizeable lesions at rostral, mesencephalic levels of the brainstem often result in persistent coma or death (Cairns 1952), those located more caudally within the pons are less severe and have been shown to give rise to a condition termed the "locked-in" syndrome. As originally described by Plum and Posner (1966), patients with this syndrome are fully conscious, alert, and responsive, but are quadriplegic and mute. Most of the patients retain the ability to make eye movements and very limited facial/head movements and some can communicate by small facial gestures. For instance, Feldman (1971) described a case of a woman with this syndrome who learned to communicate by Morse code using eye blinks and jaw movements.

A number of reports have examined sleep-wake profiles of these patients, and probably not surprisingly, have shown that most of them (or at least those with bilateral pontine lesions) completely lack REM sleep (Chase et al. 1968; Markand & Dyken 1976; Cummings & Greenberg 1977). For instance, Markand and Dyken (1976) reported that REM sleep was entirely absent in five of seven patients with the "locked-in" syndrome; SWS was present in essentially normal amounts. From case reports, the mental capacities of these patients, including memory for events and people, appear to be intact.

Although rare, there have been a few reports of patients with bilateral pontine lesions who are conscious, ambulatory and verbally communicative (Osorio & Daroff 1980; Lavie et al. 1984; Valldeoriola et al. 1993). It appears that the lesions in these patients are less extensive than those with the locked-in syndrome. Nonetheless, like patients with the locked-in syndrome, they lack REM sleep (Osorio & Daroff, 1980; Valldeoriola et al., 1993). Osorio and Daroff (1980) described two such patients. Both of them showed similar sleep deficiencies, the most prominent of which was a complete loss of REM sleep. It was further pointed out that aside from minor neurological deficits, the patients led normal lives. The authors stated: "Our two patients are the first awake and ambulatory humans in whom total absence of REM sleep has been demonstrated. These REM deprived patients behaved entirely appropriately and were by no means psychotic." The "psychotic" reference alludes to the early notion, subsequently dispelled (Vogel 1975), that long term REM deprivation produces psychosis.

Lavie et al. (1984) described the interesting case of a man who at the age of twenty suffered damage to the pontine region of the brainstem from shrapnel fragments from a gunshot wound. Following the injury, the man was comatose for 10 days, remained in critical condition for another two weeks and then recovered. An examination of his patterns of sleep at the age of 33 revealed that he essentially lacked REM sleep; that is, REM was absent on most nights and averaged 2.25% of TST on the other nights. Similar to the study by Osorio and Daroff (1980), Lavie et al. (1984) reported that despite the virtually total loss of REM sleep, the man led a normal life. For instance, following the injury the man completed college, then law school and at the time of the study was a practicing attorney.

Although no systematic attempt was made to examine the cognitive capacities of these patients, the virtual total loss of REM sleep did not seem to result in any apparent cognitive deficits.

Vertes, Robert P. and Eastman, K. E. (2000), The case against memory consolidation in REM sleep, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (6)

Patrick

trunks2k · 07-08-2003, 11:19 AM

I really doubt it, but up not up to date on my neurology. I would think that taking small naps throughout the day would throw your body completely off. We naturally want 6-8 hrs of sleep in one shot. And when it comes to sleep, it's usually not a good idea to go against natural inclinations. For example: teenagers naturally have sleep patterns that make them want to go to sleep around 1-2AM and get up at 9 or 10. But school often forces them to go to bed at 11PM and get up at 6 or so. I remember a study a while ago that showed that teenagers that went slept closer to the natural times felt more awake, energetic, etc throughout the day than the ones that slept 11 - 6.

trekbette · 07-09-2003, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tom Sawyer
He said that if you get 20 minutes of sleep every four hours, that will be enough to get you all the REM sleep you need and you can live fine with what works out to be about two hours of sleep a day. I saw something like this on an old Seinfeld episode but never really thought there was anything real to it.

I took a Psychology class a few years ago and this exact topic came up. The teacher brought in a short documentery about an artist who did the 20 minutes "cat-naps" as part of an experiment.

After two-three days, he got really active, energtic and creative. After a week, he started slipping. The experiment was supposed to go on for a month and had to be stopped because the guy's health was starting to suffer. Exteme exhaustion, visual hallucinations, tremors, lack of physical strengh.

One of the more facinating things was his art. They showed paintings he did though out the process and you could see the physical representation of his sleep patterns.

ps418 · 07-10-2003, 05:53 AM

The following is slightly OT:

In the news yesterday was another article claiming that sleep enhances memory consolidation. I haven't read the paper in Learning and Memory yet, but as far as I can tell the authors were looking at the effects of delayed sleep alone, rather than REM sleep specifically (do rats even have REM sleep?), on a type of learning called fear conditioning. While I think the evidence is pretty good that REM sleep is not required for memory consolidation, it may well be that sleep patterns in general have a strong effect on memory.

Quote:

Many behavioral and electrophysiological studies in animals and humans have suggested that sleep and circadian rhythms influence memory consolidation. In rodents, hippocampus-dependent memory may be particularly sensitive to sleep deprivation after training, as spatial memory in the Morris water maze is impaired by rapid eye movement sleep deprivation following training. Spatial learning in the Morris water maze, however, requires multiple training trials and performance, as measured by time to reach the hidden platform is influenced by not only spatial learning but also procedural learning. To determine if sleep is important for the consolidation of a single-trial, hippocampus-dependent task, we sleep deprived animals for 0�5 and 5�10 h after training for contextual and cued fear conditioning. We found that sleep deprivation from 0�5 h after training for this task impaired memory consolidation for contextual fear conditioning whereas sleep deprivation from 5�10 h after training had no effect. Sleep deprivation at either time point had no effect on cued fear conditioning, a hippocampus-independent task. Previous studies have determined that memory consolidation for fear conditioning is impaired when protein kinase A and protein synthesis inhibitors are administered at the same time as when sleep deprivation is effective, suggesting that sleep deprivation may act by modifying these molecular mechanisms of memory storage.

Graves et al, 2003. Sleep Deprivation Selectively Impairs Memory Consolidation for Contextual Fear Conditioning. Learning and Memory 10, 168-176.

Also, related to the REM-memory consolidation hypothesis, there is in addition to the Vertes and Eastman article I cited above another interesting critical review:

Quote:

It has been hypothesized that REM (rapid eye movement) sleep has an important role in memory consolidation. The evidence for this hypothesis is reviewed and found to be weak and contradictory. Animal studies correlating changes in REM sleep parameters with learning have produced inconsistent results and are confounded by stress effects. Humans with pharmacological and brain lesion-induced suppression of REM sleep do not show memory deficits, and other human sleep-learning studies have not produced consistent results. The time spent in REM sleep is not correlated with learning ability across humans, nor is there a positive relation between REM sleep time or intensity and encephalization across species. Although sleep is clearly important for optimum acquisition and performance of learned tasks, a major role in memory consolidation is unproven.

Siegal, 2001. The REM Sleep-Memory Consolidation Hypothesis. Science 294, pp. 1058-1063.

Patrick

anakata · 07-10-2003, 05:39 PM

FWIW, about a year ago i practiced the 20-min-every-4h scheme. It took about a week to adopt to it, and then it worked like a charm. I actually felt MORE rested than when sleeping normally. An extra bonus is the amazing dreams :-). The problem for me was that I tended to run out of stuff to do. I can't say anything about how healthy it is in the long run though.

trillian · 07-11-2003, 09:50 AM

Solo sailors use "napping" techniques called "polyphasic sleeping" to help them stay alert round the clock. But in those cases they are sleeping almost every hour which really wouldn't help most of us in our daily lives. Still, it shows it can be done for extended periods.

Here's a brief article about one sailor:
http://wiki.anomaly.tv/tavi/index.php?page=SailBoat

From the article:
"During the race, she napped almost every hour. During the day, the naps would last 5 to 10 minutes, at night up to 30 minutes, with MacArthur waking up in between naps for about 7 minutes to check that the situation was under control before falling asleep again.

Interestingly, her performance in the race worsened when her naps became longer, around day 51-54 of the race. Her peak performance occurred when she was sleeping less, around 4.5 to 5.5 hours a day, spurred on by motivation to win and by being aware of any changes in boat movement even while she was asleep."

trillian

ps418 · 07-11-2003, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by trillian1

From the article:
"During the race, she napped almost every hour. During the day, the naps would last 5 to 10 minutes, at night up to 30 minutes, with MacArthur waking up in between naps for about 7 minutes to check that the situation was under control before falling asleep again.

Interestingly, her performance in the race worsened when her naps became longer, around day 51-54 of the race. Her peak performance occurred when she was sleeping less, around 4.5 to 5.5 hours a day. . .

However, it would not follow that the longer naps caused the decrease in performance, since simple exhausation could explain the coincidence of longer sleep and worse performance.

Patrick

07-08-2003, 10:57 AM	#1
Tom Sawyer Talk Freethought Staff Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Toronto, eh Posts: 42,293	Sleeping I was having a conversation with some friends about sleeping yesterday. I know that if someone doesn't get REM sleep, it can cause mental problems; however one of the people there was saying that REM sleep is all that is needed to stay healthy. He said that if you get 20 minutes of sleep every four hours, that will be enough to get you all the REM sleep you need and you can live fine with what works out to be about two hours of sleep a day. I saw something like this on an old Seinfeld episode but never really thought there was anything real to it. If this is true, it means that REM sleep is the only one that we need and the rest of the sleep cycle is just a waste of time and only needed to space out our REM cycles during the night. Is this actually the case, or is deep sleep used for something as well? That would mean that the 20 minute sleep way of sleeping wouldn't work. Does anyone know anything about this?

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07-08-2003, 11:19 AM	#3
trunks2k Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Philadelphia Posts: 6,997	I really doubt it, but up not up to date on my neurology. I would think that taking small naps throughout the day would throw your body completely off. We naturally want 6-8 hrs of sleep in one shot. And when it comes to sleep, it's usually not a good idea to go against natural inclinations. For example: teenagers naturally have sleep patterns that make them want to go to sleep around 1-2AM and get up at 9 or 10. But school often forces them to go to bed at 11PM and get up at 6 or so. I remember a study a while ago that showed that teenagers that went slept closer to the natural times felt more awake, energetic, etc throughout the day than the ones that slept 11 - 6.

07-10-2003, 05:39 PM	#6
anakata Regular Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 194	FWIW, about a year ago i practiced the 20-min-every-4h scheme. It took about a week to adopt to it, and then it worked like a charm. I actually felt MORE rested than when sleeping normally. An extra bonus is the amazing dreams :-). The problem for me was that I tended to run out of stuff to do. I can't say anything about how healthy it is in the long run though.

07-11-2003, 09:50 AM	#7
trillian Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: OC Posts: 1,620	Solo sailors use "napping" techniques called "polyphasic sleeping" to help them stay alert round the clock. But in those cases they are sleeping almost every hour which really wouldn't help most of us in our daily lives. Still, it shows it can be done for extended periods. Here's a brief article about one sailor: http://wiki.anomaly.tv/tavi/index.php?page=SailBoat From the article: "During the race, she napped almost every hour. During the day, the naps would last 5 to 10 minutes, at night up to 30 minutes, with MacArthur waking up in between naps for about 7 minutes to check that the situation was under control before falling asleep again. Interestingly, her performance in the race worsened when her naps became longer, around day 51-54 of the race. Her peak performance occurred when she was sleeping less, around 4.5 to 5.5 hours a day, spurred on by motivation to win and by being aware of any changes in boat movement even while she was asleep." trillian

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