Body Rhythms and Mental States

Biological rhythms

• What are biological rhythms?

• Periodic, more or less regular fluctuations in a biological system
• Are these endogenous?
• Are they influenced by external factors?
• Circadian rhythms are biological rhythms that occur approximately every 24 hours.
• Circadian rhythms are controlled by a biological clock, or overall coordinator, located in a tiny
cluster of cells in the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
• Internal desynchronization: A state in • What of PMS?
which biological rhythms are not in
phase with one another.
• What is your chronotype?
• seasonal affective disorder (SAD): A
controversial disorder in which a person
experiences depression during the
winter and an improvement of mood in
the spring
• The menstrual cycle is a biological
rhythm that spans 28 days in most
women.
 The Rhythms of Sleep

• Physiologist Nathaniel Kleitman and his students discovered REM sleep (also known as
paradoxical sleep) and the associated patterns of brain activity
 Why is sleep important?

• What are the mental consequences of sleeplessness?

• Sleep apnea: A disorder in which breathing briefly stops during sleep, causing the person to
choke and gasp and momentarily awaken.
• narcolepsy: A disorder involving sudden and unpredictable daytime attacks of sleepiness or
lapses into REM sleep
• Cataplexy: symptom of narcolepsy
• REM behavior disorder: A disorder in which the muscle paralysis that normally occurs during
REM sleep is absent or incomplete, and the sleeper is able to act out his or her dreams.
 What are the mental benefits of sleep?

• Sleep is a crucial time for consolidation, in which synaptic changes associated with recently
stored memories become durable and stable
 Explanations of dreams

• Lucid dreams: Dreams in which the dreamer is aware of dreaming

• Psychoanalytic explanations
• Dreams as efforts to deal with problems
• Dreams as thinking
• Dreams as interpreted brain activity
• activation–synthesis theory: The theory that dreaming results from the cortical synthesis and
interpretation of neural signals triggered by activity in the lower part of the brain.
 Hypnosis
Some facts

• hypnotic responsiveness depends more on the efforts and qualities of the person being
hypnotized than on the skill of the hypnotist
• hypnotized people cannot be forced to do things against their will
• feats performed under hypnosis can be performed by motivated people without hypnosis
• hypnosis does not increase the accuracy of memory
• hypnosis does not produce a literal re-experiencing of long-ago events
• hypnotic suggestions have been used effectively for many medical and psychological purposes
 Theories of Hypnosis

• Dissociation theories - Ernest Hilgard

• Hidden observer
• Break between system that processes information and the executive system
• The Sociocognitive Approach
Consciousness-altering drugs
 The Psychology of Drug Effects

• experience with the drug refers to the number of times a person has taken it
• Individual characteristics include body weight, metabolism, initial state of emotional arousal,
personality characteristics, and physical tolerance for the drug
• Acetaldehyde
• environmental setting” refers to the context in which a person takes the drug.
• Mental set” refers to a person’s expectations about the drug’s effects and reasons for taking it
• https://youtu.be/qW11jXC01Wo?si=ypMuFJ8nFQz-l9YF