Study: Brain waves help predict stress-related sleep problems

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Brain waves pre­dict risk of insom­nia (UPI):

“Dur­ing sleep, the brain pro­duces a series of elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves. The major­i­ty of these waves are gen­er­at­ed deep in the brain from por­tions called thal­a­mus and cor­tex. Research sug­gests the cen­tral pur­pose of these waves is to drown out poten­tial­ly dis­rup­tive exter­nal stim­uli and pro­mote deep­er sleep states.

Sci­en­tists can use elec­trodes and diag­nos­tic tools to record these waves, and when they do, the activ­i­ty resem­bles the squig­gly lines of a lie detec­tor test or seis­mo­graph. Researchers refer to these lines as spindles.

“We found that those who had the low­est spin­dle activ­i­ty tend­ed to devel­op more dis­tur­bances in response to stress, when com­par­ing sleep qual­i­ty at the begin­ning of the semes­ter and the end of the school semester…We are not all equal­ly armed when fac­ing stress, in terms of how we can man­age our sleep. Some peo­ple are more vul­ner­a­ble than others.”

Learn more:

• Study: Sleep spin­dles pre­dict stress-relat­ed increas­es in sleep dis­tur­bances (Fron­tiers in Human Neuroscience)
• Six tips to build resilience and pre­vent brain-dam­ag­ing stress