SCIENCE

PSYCHOLOGY SLEEP INCURSION

On Friday 16 June, the Year 12 Psychology classes got to investigate the mysterious nature of sleep through the experience of an expert from the Turner Institute at Monash University, Rachael Harris. 

Recently, we have been exploring brain waves during sleep in class, interpreting hypnograms (graphs that reflect stages of sleep based on brain waves, eye and muscle activity) to understand when a person is awake, sleeping or most likely dreaming. We also learnt about the phenomenon called the ‘post lunch dip’, in which it is natural to be feeling a little sleepier than usual throughout the day. Perhaps this was what enabled our Period 5-6 group’s volunteer to fall asleep so readily — the other groups in Periods 1-2 and 3-4 weren’t so lucky! 

With the help of the brave volunteer, we were able to see first-hand the way those captivating hypnograms worked. As beta waves turned to theta waves, we could tell exactly when they fell asleep, despite them not being in the room with us. In addition, it was fascinating to be taught the similarity between the effects of sleep deprivation and the effects of blood alcohol levels - being awake for 24 hours straight causes as much impairment as having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10! 

We enjoyed trying on blue light filtering glasses as well, which are used to decrease the detrimental effects of the use of technology’s blue light before it’s time to go to sleep — something many of us are guilty of nowadays. It was really cool to see how a device as simple as orange tinted glasses could be of major use to sufferers of sleep disorders. 

Overall, this was an amazing experience for us Psychology students. It goes to show how important getting your beauty rest truly is!

Olivia Rusin

Year 11 Student