Regulatory Behavior
Sarah Spaulding
PSY/340
July 4, 2016
Dr. Teralyn Sell

Regulatory Behavior

The nervous system and its function regulate the human body. Everything runs smoothly with no issues during normal circumstances. Fear has an impact on how the nervous system works. An individual is examined when concerning the nervous system, and the ways that fear affects it is through body temperature regulation. When fear is present, it brings on the production of specific hormones that cause certain responses within the body leading to the flight or fight situation. With health, the abnormality is always possible to any function of the body. Knowing the common characteristics can impair an individual’s body to maintain its internal core temperature that will give people a step up against having issues later in life. An elaborate system was broken into two significant sections of the nervous system. One is the Central Nervous System, which vertebrates consists of the brain and the spinal cord. The second system is the Peripheral Nervous System includes the nervous system outside the brain and spinal cord, the neural elements. The Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems work simultaneously to play a significant role of influencing the behavior. Without the nervous system, there would be no way to get information indicating the brain to the rest of the body. The systems receive and respond to the factors in the external and internal environment that will cause a nervous response. According to National Institute of Health, the messages that are sent out by the brain are sent through the nervous system through communication with the neurons. Neurons exchange information with each other by utilizing the axons and dendrites. When a neuron presented with a message from another neuron, it sends a signal that electrically charged down the length of its axon. At the end of the axon, the electrically charged signal is converted into a chemical message, and the axon lets out these chemical signals called neurotransmitters (2013). This system is how the brain communicates commands such as walking, blinking, talking, and keeping a person’s body temperature regulated. The nervous system communication process controls all bodily functions.
A significant effect on one’s sleeping habits can be fear, aggression, and anxiety. An ongoing fear or phobia can cause an individual to lose sleep, which in turn, decreases their function the next day. Fear can also inhibit bad dreams throughout the night, which could also cause the individual to wake up periodically throughout the evening and not receive any rapid-eye-movement sleep. Aggression can also affect sleep as well. If a person already has sleep problems, such as sleep apnea or insomnia, this can cause aggression to worsen. It also is the other way around: if a person has an ongoing attack, it can cause more sleep problems than before. Anxiety can also cause problems with healthy sleep hygiene. Anxiety could be the cause of one’s sleep apnea or insomnia. There is a cycle that some may go through when trying to sleep. First, you are lying in bed having difficulty getting to sleep. Then, you realize that you are still awake and should be sleeping; this is when the anxiety takes effect. The body kicks in the fight-or-flight mechanism, and the sympathetic nervous system shifts on, and the body starts to produce adrenalin due to a false perception of a threat, which prevents sleep. Then you are back to the outset where that is hard for you to fall asleep. Lack of adequate sleep can make it difficult to receive, and remember information. Sleepless nights can result in overworked neurons to no longer function well. To stimulate the brain regions used in learning, we can depend on rapid-eye-movement sleep. During rapid-eye- movement sleep, cells in the pons send messages that inhibit the motor neurons that control the body's large muscles (Kalat, 2013). Slow-wave sleep can also play a significant role in memory. Slow-wave-sleep can increase restorative processes during sleep. Slow waves indicate that neuronal activity is highly synchronized (Kalat, 2013). Depriving a person of sleep can impair verbal learning, especially early in the night. Depriving a person of sleep during the second half of the evening reduces consolidation of learned motor skills. Alliance represents the processes by which memory becomes stable. After sleep drive has disappeared in the second half of the night, the suprachiasmatic nucleus can maintain sleep throughout the evening. An individual is a sleep deprived during the early evening; they have impaired verbal learning such as memorizing a list of words. Sleep deprived was reported about those who do not get enough sleep over long periods of time experience tremors and dizziness (Kalat, 2013). According to “Psychology Today” (2009), a hormonal reaction is produced when the body experiences fear, just as with any function of the body. When a person encounters a fearful situation, the glucocorticoids found to be generated in the adrenal cortex and the catecholamine hormones located in the sympathetic nerves and the adrenal medulla, travel throughout the body and causes a rise in core body temperature and produces the fight or flight experience. Hormones, critical to growth and sexual maturation, are mainly released while sleeping, making it imperative teens are following a real sleep schedule. Healthy sleep helps improve not only your health but the quality of life. There are numerous ways to ensure a good quality night of sleep (Schwimmer, 2015). Our sleep habits are what compensate for our busy daily lives. We become neglectful toward quality sleep, and many suffer the consequences of allowing ourselves to attempt to prevent the biological clock. Maintaining a regular sleep pattern can be particularly challenging. Can assure to obtain the quality of sleep needed, several factors need to be in place. Start saying no to commitments that impede on personal time and space during the evening hours. Analyze daily routines, go to bed at an hour that affords plenty of sleep, and tries to eliminate stress.

Conclusion The loss of sleep can be one of the many reasons to disrupt a person’s quality of life. The distinction between total sleep deprivation and partial sleep deprivation is necessary to understand. The sleep-wake cycle can be damaged by outside forces stress, anxiety, fear and aggression. Cognitive performance has declined after chronic sleep deprivation, including memory functions, long term, and short term. It is important for an individual to know the effects that sleep deprivation that one can have. Although the human body is a very complex and impressive it is not invincible. The nervous system is responsible for keeping the body functioning and communicating at optimal levels. Fear can cause a disruption the temperature may increase, and hormones led into the system that aid in preparation for a fight situation. The temperature regulation function system may also suffer from disorders that cause a person’s quality of life. Impairments can cause anesthesia use, a potential for hypothermia causing the core body temperature to rise. Sleep a process that is essential to one’s overall health, but a lack of it can impact one’s quality of life throughout their waking hours. Although it might seem as if there is not anything that we don’t already know when it comes to medicine, in fact, a great deal that we do not know.

References

Kalat, J.W (2013). Biological Psychology (11th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning/Wadsworth. Retrieved from: The University of Phoenix eBook.

National Institute of Health (2013). What are the parts of the nervous system?
. Retrieved: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/neuro/conditioninfo/Pages/parts.aspx

Rodrigues, S. M., Ledoux, J. E., & Sapolsky, R. M. (2009). The influences of stress Hormones on fear circuitry. Retrieved: http://my psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/37382/Rodrigues-ledoux-sapolsky-arn-2009.pdf

Schwimmer, C. (2015). Healthy Sleep Basics. Sleep Education. Retrieved: http://www.sleepeducation.org /healthysleep/ healthy-sleep-basics