Sleep Machines and Power Naps

This could be a cool thing........... or not.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1264358,00.html

Machine Means End To Sleepless Nights
Updated: 09:50, Sunday May 06, 2007

A new discovery could make it possible to take a "power nap" at the flick of a switch.
Scientists have found a way to turn on deep sleep at will using a machine that magnetically stimulates the brain.

Sweet dreamsA device worn on the head could in squeeze the benefit of eight hours' sleep into just two or three hours.

Scientists in the US used a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to induce slow waves - indicative of the deepest phase of sleep and essential for learning ability and mood, in a group of sleeping volunteers.

A TMS device sends harmless magnetic signals through the scalp and skull and into the brain, where it activates electrical impulses.

The researchers found that positioning the TMS machine the right way triggered slow waves that travelled throughout the brain.

Slow wave activity occupies 80% of sleeping hours.

During slow wave sleep, waves of electrical impulses wash across the brain at a rate of roughly one a second.


With each magnetic pulse, the volunteers' brains immediately generated slow waves typical of deep sleep.

"Creating slow waves on demand could some day lead to treatments for insomnia," said study leader Prof Giulio Tononi, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"Theoretically, it could also lead to a magnetically stimulated `power nap' which might confer the benefit of eight hours' sleep in just a few hours."

Prof Tononi believes sleep is essential to prevent the brain overloading.

Memory involves strengthening synapses - connections between brain cells formed by learning.

Sleep might allow the connections created during the day to relax at night, according to Prof Tononi.

The research appeared in an early edition of the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

I use drugs and alcohol to flip my switch.

 

I would LOVE it

 

a person can get the benefit of 8 hours sleep in a 20 minute deep meditation

 

Don't let the machines take over! ID this serious? A machine that can switch you off and on when you want to go to sleep!? Getting to sleep starts with living healthy. If you don't eat junk all day and exercise once in a while you will sleep much better. If that doesn't work try melatonin caps. Melatonin is a naturally occuring chemical in the brain that induces sleep. More info here: http://www.jigsawhealth.com/products/melatonin.html.

Do something good for yourself instead of finding more and more ways to let machines live your life for you!

 

I was having a hard time sleeping and tried 5mg of melatonin a night for 2 months. Can't say it has helped or gave me weirder dreams than usual (one of the common side effects supposedly)

 

take a nap on my penis

 

I take Ambien CR every weeknight. I would love to have one of these machines... I would use it for the full eight hours though...