

“Insufficient REM sleep increases sensitivity to stressful stimuli or events,” says Dr.

If you’re not getting enough snooze time, it can wreak havoc on your emotional health. How are your emotions affected if you don’t get enough REM sleep? The findings from this study gave a deeper insight and understanding of REM sleep and how it connects to emotional health. This is believed to be a safety tactic, as the dendrites blocked any harmful messages from being sent out. But according to the research, during REM sleep, the dendrites receive and store the emotional messages but don’t send them to the axons for further communication. The dendrite receives information and carries it to the cell body, while the axon carries it away. Each neuron has three parts-dendrite, cell body, and axon. Neurons, a part of your nervous system, receive the information and send it to the brain for processing. You are constantly interchanging emotions throughout the day as external and internal stimuli trigger their release. Why are dendrites necessary for emotional processing during REM sleep? Let’s briefly examine dendrites and why they are crucial during REM sleep. As you may already know, negative emotions are directly linked to emotional distress in the brain and body. They discovered the dendrites acted as little gatekeepers as they prevented negative emotions from being stored during REM sleep.
Dendrite stories cracked#
What the researchers found cracked the code. And one thing to note about REM sleep is it’s a very active state, so this was puzzling. The aim was to understand why the front of the brain, the cerebral cortex, condensed emotions when awake and not during REM sleep.

The researchers tested mice’s brains during REM, non-REM sleep, and wakefulness. How does REM sleep help you process your emotions?Ī recent study was done at the University of Bern and the University Hospital Bern in Switzerland to investigate how the process works. “During REM sleep, the amygdala, which is the emotional control center, communicates with the hippocampus to modulate and regulate emotional stimuli during the day.” Overall, REM is significant for healthy mental function and maintaining the stability of your emotions. Angela Holliday-Bell, physician, certified sleep specialist, and sleep coach at The Solution is Sleep. “REM sleep helps to regulate emotions and process emotional memories,” says Dr. Your blood pressure and breathing increase, but your muscles become relaxed, almost in a paralyzed state, to protect you from acting your dreams out. In REM sleep, your brain actively consolidates memory, improves cognitive performance, and plays out your wildest, most vivid dreams. What is REM sleep, and why is it important? REM stands for rapid eye movement as the name states, your eyes move rapidly, back and forth under your lids. While each stage of sleep is essential, the king is REM sleep. From the moment your eyes roll back at night to the very second you wake up in the morning, your brain goes through different stages of sleep that are pivotal to your health.
