As fundamentally biological beings, the function of our bodies and minds require time for rest and recovery. So central in fact is sleep to the health of an individual, that the length of its deprivation is consistently linked to a progressive decline in physical, cognitive, and mental health markers. It has shown to play a major role in the current epidemic of ADHD and PTSD, among many other common pathologies whose prevalence in the US has been on a steady rise.

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There are currently many dozens of sleep disorders, all of which play a significant role in a multitude of physical and mental health dysfunctions. Common symptoms of poor sleep such as fatigue, daytime sleepiness, poor attention, aggression, brain fog, and reduced motivation, have vast consequences not only on personal and professional success, but on individual safety when combined with the realities of public transportation and the reliance on technology that can cause harm when misused. Disordered sleep is a wide-spread clinical complaint that is known to afflict about 30% of US adults in a given year. Children are currently also at a high risk of sleep quality loss as the American Academy of Pediatrics reports that just over 50% of all school age children receive an insufficient amount of sleep on a continuous basis. Children suffering from attentional diffuclties such as ADHD consistenly report poor sleep quality. The US Department of Transportation reports that 16% of all fatal car accidents were associated with sleep related drowsiness.

Stress and the Brain

The role of sleep has been shown to have a dramatic influence on a wide range of health markers, such as cardiovascular and metabolic function. Most importantly it is not as important whether a sleep disorder is the cause of, or the outcome of something else, but that its management/regulation is shown to have immense clinical significance. One of these key features of sleep that has been discovered through technological means is it’s schedule, or stages. The ability of the brain to cycle through 4 distinct stages of sleep, is the defining feature that constitutes healthy sleep performance. This invaluable information has been elucidated through the advances of EEG/electroencephalography (brain wave) technology, which are measurements of the electrical activity emitted by different regions of the brain, often expressed in cycles per second (Hertz/Hz). Every stage of sleep has a unique brainwave profile associated with it, and one of the deepest stages of non-REM sleep has been defined by the prevalence of the slowest brain wave “Delta”