Looking for the different, we have found an area of life where sleep deprivation may be useful. Our hope is that you never need to avail yourself of this treatment. It seems that roughly 20% of people experiencing a traumatic event, like war, terrorism, or even a bad car wreck, benefit from sleep deprivation for 6 hours after the event.
It is hard to forget these events, they stay with us for years. But we organize our brains as we sleep. By postponing sleep for hours after an event, it may help our minds get a handle on that event prior to sleep, which then can assign to the proper place in our memory. It may also show why amnesia can develop in certain people, perhaps their brain's way of dealing with the event.
Putting the event in long term memory, may be a way to battle PTSD. In an experiment with rats, Those that were sleep deprived seemed to show less memory of a traumatic event, than the control group that was allowed to sleep immediately after the event. Now rats are not humans, so we want to be careful in the interpretation. However, it seems that the way to deal with trauma is to not sleep, but rather stay awake and allow our brains to adjust to the trauma first, then when we sleep, our brains can put the proper perspective on the event and reduce PTSD.
PTSD has been in the news for a while now, because of its attack on our fighting men and women, but this can happen even in civilian life as accidents happen. A car wreck is an example, but even natural disasters can cause trauma. This area of study deserves more time to fully understand how to best serve those who have experienced trauma. The information for this story came from psychcentral.com, and is certainly worth the read. So if you experience trauma, wait 6 hours and then...
Sleep Well!
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