What’s the science behind someone being a “light sleeper”?

601 views

What’s the science behind someone being a “light sleeper”?

In: Biology

20 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

Everything I’ve heard so far has very little science behind it.

what allows a ‘deep sleeper’ the ability to wake up when someone walks into the front door… but ignore the tv that includes a front door sound?

Anonymous 0 Comments

Here’s my question: what’s the science behind me sleeping so long? 10-12 hours is typical for me.

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

I researched this once and I believe a contributing factor is how active an individual’s thalamus is. The thalamus is the part of the brain responsible for relaying sensory signals and regulating sleep/consciousness/alertness. Individuals with a highly active thalamus may allow sensory input during sleep to get “lost in the noise” so that they are less likely to be disrupted. Those with a less active thalamus may therefore be able to pay more attention to the same stimuli and thus have a greater chance of disrupting sleep.
Edit: spelling

Anonymous 0 Comments

Obstructive Sleep Apnea causes you to wake up several times an hour, which is pretty much by definition sleeping lightly.

Anonymous 0 Comments

So as far as I’m aware, we actually still don’t have a like, comprehensive, in depth understanding of sleep. We’ve gotten some good ideas and all! Like we’re pretty sure that deep sleep phases are about energy saving and physical maintenance down time; and that the lighter and dream sleep phases have to do with memory. (I saw a fascinating study recently implying it’s about correctly associating emotional reactions and circumstances. They showed that when people had a “fearful” experience and slept poorly over the next week or so, they became more generally anxious; but if they slept well, they “correctly” associated the fear with its specific cause, such as a car crash or tiger chasing them, etc; and their general stress levels were unchanged.)

Anyways, sleep is *especially* complex and whole-brain, but here’s *a* hypothesis from someone that doesn’t really know neuroscience but would like to: there’s part of your “hindbrain” (the reptile brain, in that slightly outdated model) that continues to do some processing of senses while you’re asleep. I almost said that it “is still awake” while you’re asleep, but that’d be very incorrect, since being awake and conscious involves all kinds of other activity in the brain that you’re just not doing. The same part of the brain gets input from the ears (and other senses!) before it goes on to your full auditory cortex, and it handles startle reflexes, the way you’ll jump at a loud noise before you’ve fully put together what the noise is, where it’s coming from, etc. So this part of the brain “decides” (in a crude, simpler animal, or even mechanistic kind of way) if some input is worth startling you awake.

And so of course different hindbrains can be more or less “jumpy”, and can also care more or less about different things. I know mine sure fixates on the sounds of people talking or moving around; it just doesn’t feel safe if there are people around and it doesn’t know what they’re up to, so I’ve gotta wake up and listen. Hurricane though? Eh, we’ll sort that in the morning, if we’re still alive.

**ETA: TL;DR**: We aren’t sure, but it’s probably something like our hindbrain’s automatic startle/danger reflex activating.