A person spends a third of life in "nowhere". Why do we sleep?

Work, friendship, sports, family, food, reading — in the day is clearly not enough time to for all time. To live a full life, many of us carve out precious hours from the time allotted for sleep. Borrow, the next day to pay double the price. A busy life leads to a dramatic reduction, if not abandonment of sleep. If the world existed a disease that deprives people of a third precious life, the search for a cure would be lavishly financed. It's the Holy Grail of sleep researchers. Maybe they found the thread.

As with many others, it is difficult for us to give up our biological need for sleep from the cultural code. The practice of sleeping for eight hours on a soft, raised platform, alone or in pairs, is actually atypical for humans. Many traditional companies are sleeping and snatches, and social activity continues all night. Some Wake up when something interesting happens, and sometimes fall asleep in the middle of the conversation, to end the dispute. Sleep is universal, but comes to us all in different ways.

Various kinds also, apparently, sleeps differently. Herbivores sleep far less than carnivores — elephants for four hours, lions twenty — not least because they need more time to feed themselves and to protect. Being omnivorous, humans fall somewhere between these two dormant groups. Circadian rhythms, the body's internal clock, allow us to anticipate daily cycle of wakefulness and regulate body functions in time so that they do not interfere with each other.

Our internal clock is based on chemical oscillation, the feedback loop at the cellular level, which lasts 24 hours hiding in a cluster of brain cells in our eyes (near optic nerve). Even deep in a cave without access to light or the hour our bodies keep internal schedule almost exactly 24 hours. In isolation, our body clocks will go slower. If the schedule of sleep and wakefulness do not update the light, we Wake up a few minutes late every day. This deep-rooted cycle can be found in every known multicellular organism, and the rotation of the Earth — corresponding to the cycles of day and night — have shaped it.

Human Sleep comprises several 90-minute cycles of brain activity. From the waking man's testimony electroencephalogram (EEG) is very complicated, but when it comes to sleep, brain waves slow down, pass through the first stage (relaxation), second (light sleep) and third (slow-wave deep sleep). After these recovery stages the brain goes through a phase of rapid eye movement, where the brain resembles the awake. Awakened in this stage remember that they dreamt.

One of the most valuable results of the work on the topic of sleep deprivation, the study revealed clear individual differences: some people perform better after sleepless nights, and some did not. The division is quite clear and, apparently, based on several genetic variants, which encode the receptors of neurotransmitters, opening the possibility in the future to adjust the dose of a stimulant for a certain genetic type.

At the beginning of this Millennium it has become evident that the biological imperative to sleep at least a third 24-hour period is excessive and unnecessary. Just like pills and condoms to control the birth rate, and other stimulants can rid us of the archaic heritage of the animal Kingdom.

Any cure for sleepiness should be aimed at the prefrontal cortex. The Executive functions of the brain are particularly vulnerable to sleep deprivation, people who sleep less are more likely at risk and less likely to be able to accept new or creative solutions or to plan a course of action. Designer stimulants such as modafinil and armodafinil, "revitalize" these areas and effectively overcome the negative effects of sleep deprivation. For 60 hours awake 400 mg of modafinil every eight hours to restore reduced performance in all types of work, from the boring to the most complex.

Cool, yeah. However, this is roughly identical to the restorative effects of 20 mg dextroamphetamine, or 600 mg of caffeine (the equivalent of about six cups of coffee). Though caffeine has a shorter half-life and should be taken every four hours or so, he is everywhere and quite cheap.

That designer stimulants enable you to do a long and concentrated work, know of any College or University, drinking energy drinks during the session. A much more difficult challenge for the person sitting on the stimulants, it would be to teach my grandmother to use the phone. It is difficult enough to design a stimulator that will offer focus without the tunnel effect — that is, without loss of the ability to navigate the broad environment and adopt a socially determined decision. Irritability and impatience interfere with the team dynamic and social interactions, but such nuances are usually missed in studies of drugs. These problems have been largely ignored amid the enthusiasm for the development of drugs that reduce the need for sleep.

In 1996, the defence psychologist Martin Taylor called a few volunteers and gave everyone in the map. One of the two cards was the route. For those who have had a map with the route needed to describe it accurately to your partner, so that he could reproduce it on her map. Meanwhile, the scientists listened to their talks. In the control group of volunteers mark on the map was often presented as a question, for example: "I See the Park to the West of the roundabout?". Volunteers also who have taken the stimulant modafinil, keep these feedback loops, instead relying on jerky and uncompromising instructions: "Go to the West of the roundabout, then turn left to Park." Their dialogues were short and they gave less accurate map than the control volunteers. Moreover, modafinil has led to the fact that the subject overestimated his capabilities. He is not only worse coped with the task, but never noticed this.

One of the reasons for which stimulants were disappointing in reducing the need for sleep, is that we don't understand why sleeping at all. More than a hundred years of research sleepy deprivation confirmed the obvious: sleep deprivation makes a person drowsy. It responds more slowly to external stimuli, process information more slowly, can't focus, and the most important indicator is the tendency to quickly fall asleep when they lay down in a dark room. "Pass out". Apparently, the main function of sleep is to maintain our wakefulness during the day.

Since the promoters are unable to become a biological substitute for sleep, the new slogan of the experimenters in the field of sleep is "effectiveness: reducing the number of hours of sleep needed for full functionality. The defense advanced research projects Agency DARPA leads to compress a full night's sleep in a few hours. The soldiers on duty will be required to operate in accordance with their cognitive and physical skills without even needing 24-hour sleep cycle.

Nancy Wesensten, a psychologist at the Center for military psychiatry and neuroscience research Institute of the army Walter reed is looking for ways to have longer soldiers in working condition, trying to overcome the consequences of acute or chronic carotid deprivation. She claims that the dream person must be considered as an important resource as food or fuel. Working with the corps of the Navy, Wesensten not trying to create a super soldier that will never sleep. She's not even trying to improve the performance of your soldiers – they are already elite. Everyone needs to sleep, at least sometimes. But the theater of military operations requires the soldiers were awake and ready as long as possible.

Although the army and the USAF have a long history of use of stimulants – that's where invented modafinil and dextroamphetamine used for the 24-hour flight – Marines, as a rule, do not accept any pharmacological interventions. As Wesensten, Chris Berka from Advanced Brain Monitoring, one of the partners of DARPA research, said that wary of stimulants. "Sooner or later there is some stimulant seems to be working well and has attracted the interest, and then no more about it hear, because it has limitations and problems".

Some failed mission, the air force drew attention to the danger of paranoia caused by the intake of amphetamine. In less than ten years after the ban of amphetamines by the air force in 1992, "mobile tablets" was quietly returned for the use of combat pilots during long missions in Afghanistan. On 17 April 2002, major Harry Schmidt, one of the best combat pilots, flying F-16 over Afghanistan. Canadian soldiers below him were conducting an operation, and controllers told Schmidt to refrain from the fire. However, the pilot, being "on pills", and decided that his attack, pulled the trigger and killed four canadian soldiers. This incident led to a field trial, but the media has affected most of the pharmaceutical aspect.

Especially for military personnel, ABM has developed a mask of "sleeping simulator" — Somneo Sleep Trainer – which uses one - or two-hour Windows for strategic sleep in a mobile environment for sleep. Cutting out ambient noise and visual distractions, the mask heats up the area around the eyes (I think that it helps people get to sleep). It also has blue light that is becoming brighter as it approaches, suppressing the sleep hormone melatonin and providing a restful awakening.

The Perfect sleep contains several 60 - and 90-minute cycles, of slow-wave phase to the phase of the REM, but a 20 minute Siesta is dedicated to the early immersion in the second phase of sleep. In the second phase of sleep tired muscles recover faster, and vigilance comes in...