The Interaction Between Psychological and Physical Health Essay

According to Edwards (2008), sleep is an important aspect of life and qualifies to be categorised as an active body process. The importance of having adequate sleep is related to the fact that it affects the immune function, metabolism and control of body temperature. Spending much time viewing motion pictures increases the sleep onset latency and the amount of sleep an individual will have on stage 2 periods of sleep. Excessive watching of television will negatively impact on sleep efficiency.

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The sleep/dream journal does not follow a specified pattern. On the first day, I was stressed over the financial hiccups that my family is going through. This greatly affected my sleep time to the extent that I spent most of the night thinking of possible solutions. On the second day, the school projects were not that burdening and having successfully completed them, followed a peaceful and full-time sleep during the night without any dream. The third day was an eventful day full of surprises and excitement. On this very, day, I spent most of it with my girlfriend and what followed was a recap of the day's activities. The fourth and seventh day was characterised by alternating patterns of sleep/wakeness as a resulted of stress accumulated during the day. Fatigue on day five and as a result, most of the night time was spent sleeping. Just like on the second day, day 8 and 10 were characterised by total sleep while the ninth day after spending most of the daytime watching movies, I had dreams related to the movies I watched.

According to Edwards (2008), different people deal with stress in different ways and can either be classified as problem-focused coping, disengagement, or emotional-focused coping individuals. Persons who have a high score on problem-focused coping tend to experience longer sleep periods and true sleep durations. Those who had a high score on emotional-focused coping experienced a reduced amount of sleep and the quality of sleep. Different stressors that individuals encounter throughout the day impacts the person's sleep architecture. On day 4 and 7, I experienced an alternating pattern of sleep/wakeness owing to the stress accumulated during the day. The challenging tasks and approaching deadlines to submit the school project resulted in considerable levels of stress. It is difficult to clearly establish a consistent pattern of the effect of stress on my sleeping trend because of the variations in the life stresses experienced as the tasks handled also varied considerably. Thus it can be concluded that school tasks contributed to psychological stress hence increased awakening.

According to Ramster (2010), the thoughts that underlie the dream an individual has at night are developed as the waking day progresses. A contrary opinion puts it that dreams are a representation of personality that is yet to be fully developed, however, this theory has not received adequate support from psychologists and researchers. According to Schredl and Hoffman (2003), activities manifested in dreams such as conversation with friends and driving of automobiles are related to the total time spent on them during the waking life. The thoughts preceding the waking life are stored in the preconscious mind and would later see conscious manifestation from there. Their expressions according to Freud are brought forward through dreams with a linking chain to the unconscious thoughts (Schredl, & Hofmann, 2003). Memories that are stored in the human preconscious mind have a role to play in the dreams that a person experiences as he or she sleeps and that their appearance is influenced by the relevant stimulus. Thus, it is clear that the leftover thoughts from the waking life manifest in our dreams and more so if triggered by emotional issues. this conclusion concurs with the outcome on day 3 and nine which were dominated by activities such as watching movies and spending most time the loved ones. The emotional involvement in these particular activities could also be the possible cause of their incorporation into the dreams I experienced on the two accounts.

Conclusion

From the journal entry, there is no established pattern due to variations in the physical activity involved in. however, the sleep/dream journal gives a clear indication that the experiences during the waking life have a relation to the sleeping patterns and the dream experiences that a person has as he or she gets to sleep. In order to achieve a favourable psychological and physical health, a balance of time spent on different activities during the day should be accounted for. There is a need to develop effective stress coping strategies so as to maintain a healthier psychological life. Since adequate and efficient sleeping time is directly related to physical health and well-being of an individual, a balance of daytime activities and stress management skills will be of great importance. Prior planning before spending is key to averting financial problems which may lead to psychological stress. In conclusion, the avoidance of possible stressors during the day will significantly improve on the quality and length of the sleeping time.

References

Edwards, J. (2008). Sleep habits and academic performance (Doctoral dissertation).

Ramster, P. J. (2010). An assessment of the validity of Freudian dream theory (and Freudian dream interpretation in the therapeutic process) in the light of the Freud/Lear debate.

Schredl, M., & Hofmann, F. (2003). Continuity between waking activities and dream activities. Consciousness and Cognition, 12(2), 298-308.