Category: Sleep

Scrolling through posts on Instagram or Facebook, chatting with friends on WhatsApp are everyday activities that each of us performs before finally going to bed. Nevertheless, researchers argue that such types of entertainment disrupt healthy sleeping patterns, especially among children. A number of various works analyze this issue and determine whether or not these devices are harmful; the article by Gwen Dewar is one of them. This researcher is an anthropologist with a big experience in studying issues related to parenting, psychology, biology and many other topics. However, there are several features that distinguish this study from others. For instance, aside from presenting reasons as to why electronic media cause trouble, the author also provides tips to help children to improve their sleep. Dewar achieves the purpose of spreading awareness about this problem by conducting thorough literature research and introducing factual evidence.

The author begins by mentioning that even though electronic devices are essential for modern life, they also cause trouble. Dewar presents the issue and wonders how serious it is and how parents can help children to sleep better. After that, she talks about the reasons as to why media disrupts sleep patterns, which includes exposure to blue light, as well as questionable or violent content. Then, the author emphasizes the fact that the vast majority of studies report a link between electronic media use and altered sleep patterns (Dewar para. 43). Nevertheless, she points out that correlation does not mean causation and then presents tips to prevent sleep problems.

First of all, it should be pointed out that in this article, the author presents a number of proofs as to why researchers are worried about electronic media causing sleep problems. For instance, she submits accurate information from various sources, such as studies by Goh et al., Hysing et al., Higuchi et al., and many others. They argue that indoor lighting suppresses melatonin production, which disrupts normal sleeping patterns (Dewar para. 26). In addition, Dewar also talks about studies that proved how changing media content could help children to sleep better (Dewar para. 56). The author manages to use reliable sources and incorporates them well in her own research.

Most of the information Dewar collects from scholarly articles that were published in various periodicals, such as The Journal of Pediatrics or Journal of Sleep Research. These academic sources are international and publish expert reviews and ideas on several medical issues on a global level. Moreover, the author also includes data from different national surveys, which is a common method of collecting data. According to them, a significant number of children use electronics before bed and sleep less than those who do not have any devices in their rooms. There are no logical fallacies in the presented information as every article, trial and study indicates that media has a negative effect on sleep patterns. Since all data was gathered from different credible peer-reviewed sources, it can be assumed that the author conducted comprehensive literature research. It makes the article more believable, and the authors arguments seem convincing.

Furthermore, after presenting proof, Dewar points out that even though there is compelling evidence, this issue is not researched well enough to make claims. For this reason, it would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that electronic devices are necessarily harmful. Since Dewar makes assumptions that, perhaps, some children use devices to help them fall asleep: such a position is not biased and allows room for discussion. Nevertheless, although Dewar accepts the fact that researchers still do not know everything about this topic, the power of electronic media cannot be underestimated. However, in this part of her research, Dewar does not present any evidence-based information or publications from other sources. Instead, she indicates the necessity of further research on this topic, and it is still early to blame electronic devices for everything.

Therefore, the author feels the need to provide tips for parents that can help to prevent sleep problems among children. This part of the article is especially helpful since it offers support and beneficial advice. Moreover, Dewar credits the guide, from which tips were collected, which means that the author of the article also thoroughly studied the topic instead of making up these tips.

As for my opinion on this article, I would say that the author manages to present convincing arguments with the help of a significant amount of data. For this reason, I could definitely use it in my own final paper. From this research, I discovered why electronic devices disrupt sleep among children and how it is possible to mitigate the negative effects. However, I would also like to get more information about the other side of the argument. In other words, it would be useful to implement citations from credible resources that doubt the connection between electronics and sleep problems. The paragraph about how correlation does not mean causation was relatively small compared to other parts of the article, where Dewar discussed the adverse outcomes.

In conclusion, it would appear that by writing this article, Dewar manages to not only educate the readers on the topic of disruptive electronic media but also to offer help. There is a significant amount of information that can be used in my final paper, as well as several thought-provoking questions for further studies. For instance, it would be interesting to discuss further if every individual is affected by electronic media. Through comprehensive research, the author provides reasonable arguments as to why exactly devices harm sleep patterns among children. Out of credible scholarly articles from international journals, she gathers a number of evidence about the adverse impact of electronics. However, through this study, Dewars position remains objective, and she does not preach on this subject. In addition, she also gives valuable advice which can be used by parents in order to help their children.

Work Cited

Dewar, Gwen. Tech before bedtime: Do electronic media devices cause sleep problems in children? Parenting Science, 2018, Web.

Is your child not getting enough sleep? What is the main reason behind this? Indeed all of us know that an adult can sleep anytime but if it is a toddler he needs to sleep on an average 13 hours and 30 minutes sleep. Good sleep is equally important for the good health of a baby. As the baby grows older the time or duration of sleep decreases to a good extent and this is natural. If your toddler is sleeping less it is a matter of concern and it requires special attention. In such a situation you can also contact your paediatrician to know more about the subject. There may be various reasons behind this act.

Signs for sleep deprivation

If your toddler is not sleeping for hours and even for days there may be a strong reason behind it. In the next few lines, we will mainly focus on the main reasons behind this reason. It is expected a small discussion on this subject will help the parents to know in a much better manner. But if your toddler is overtired it may be one of the main reasons for not sleeping.

Irritation

Most of the time it is found that your toddler is feeling irritating and gets angry even in small matters. If that is the case, it is natural that your little one may suffer from the problem of sleep deprivation. The only solution behind this problem is to make him feel better and happy throughout the day.

Tough process

If it is noticed that your little one is not sleeping easily during bedtime there may be some hard reasons behind it and ultimately he will not sleep throughout the night. On the other side, sleepless nights can ultimately make him feel bad and irritating.

Overactive activities

If your precious member remains active throughout the day he may experience sleepless nights. Try to make him remain cool and normal throughout the day. If he is getting overactive try to settle down in a better and easier way. Sometimes over-excitement may not be good for his health.

Improper sleeping timings

If it is found that the toddler is sleeping anywhere or at a strange place, it may be one of the solid causes of sleep deprivation. If it is noticed repeatedly it is better to consult the concerned physician as early as possible. It may not be good for him or his health. It is for sure that if the little member of your family is not getting enough sleep it should be given prior importance.

Healthy lifestyle

Lastly, a healthy lifestyle is equally responsible for the proper growth of the baby. It should be followed right from the first day of his life. A baby or a toddler should be nourished in a better way. It is important for his good growth and development. Mere feeding the baby in time is not the main thing but he should be taken care of every minute matters.

Now it can be well-assumed from the above discussion that proper nourishment of the baby is vital for good health and life. This is the main duty of every parent and they should always try to maintain it any cost. If there is a change in the routine of the toddler it will mainly affect his sleep.

You felt rested when you woke up this morning or the other day, but were you? You had breakfast this morning and your hunger was satisfied. Your brain needs its hunger satisfied too and you feed it when you sleep.

Sleep deprivation is not good for you and can have many negative side effects. Skipping your sleep can be deadly as a driver and can really affect your performance at school, on the job, or anywhere else. Research shows that sleepiness also makes you grumpy, increases the probability of having accidents and injuries, limits your concentration, increases your craving for sweets, and often makes you eat too much food. And for those who hate their acne, this could be caused by not getting enough sleep.

Sleep deprivation can seem hard to defeat and control, but there are ways to help your body. A commonly known solution is to reduce or totally get rid of the amount of caffeine that you drink. This includes avoiding coffee, tea, soda, and chocolate late in the day. It’s also recommended that you don’t eat, drink, or exercise within a few hours of your bedtime. Quiet, calm activities such as reading a book or taking a shower relax your body, while watching TV, playing computer games, or looking at your phone, activate your brain. Keeping a consistent sleep schedule makes it easier to fall asleep because your body knows when it’s time for you to sleep. To prevent staying awake due to stressing or worrying, keep a diary or to-do list. It is okay for you to take a nap but time it right and avoid long naps as this can interfere with your body’s sleep schedule.

How much sleep should you be getting? Doctors recommend an average of 8-10 hours every night but this varies depending on your age. Adults should get anywhere from 5-9 hours but 7-9 is recommended. Teenagers and young adults should get 7-10 which is especially important because at this age, you do a lot of growing. School aged kids 6-13 should get 9-11 hours. The younger you are, the more sleep you should get.

In conclusion, get your sleep and keep yourself healthy. Lack of sleep can affect your mood, and a depressed mood can lead to sleep deprivation. Combat the vicious cycle and get your 8-10 hours of sleep. Keep a consistent sleep schedule, going to bed and getting up at the same time on weekends as on weekdays. Choose relaxing activities over turning on the TV. And parents, you can be good example to your children by having good sleep habits yourself and assisting your child/children with their sleep schedules.

Sleep plays a crucial role in brain function and the systematic physiology of many-body systems. Difficulty with sleep has become widely prevalent, consisting of deficits in quantity and quality of sleep. Insomnia is a subtype, associated with difficulty falling asleep, waking up often during the night and having trouble going back to sleep. These sleep difficulties begin with short term sleep disturbances, but can eventually branch to sleep deprivation, which are the same symptoms on a long-term scale. Recent literature has shown a direct relationship with these symptoms and adverse effects on cognitive function. Cognition is a broad term, encompassing a variety of mental processes such as memory, problem-solving, language, planning and attention (Miller et al., 2014). Cognitive impairment is a measurable decline to these cognitive abilities. When determining the fine line between these two key terms, research points to loss of sleep, causing harm to the proper neural and physical function of an individual. This paper will evaluate the potential impact of this neurological basis of the relationship between sleep disturbance and cognitive function, as well as how sleep disturbance can negatively and positively affect an individual’s cognitive function. The related notion that sleep disturbances, or rather the long-term consequence of sleep deprivation on cognitive decline is an ongoing debate; however, the definitive correlation remains unknown.

Sleep insomnia is a primary cause of sleep disturbance. It develops from stress at home or work, poor sleeping habits, overeating and existing mental health disorders, and as a result, cause substantial short- and long-term health conditions. A literature search reported that sleep disturbance correlates with responses such as increased activity in the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, metabolic effects, changes in circadian rhythms, and proinflammatory responses (Mysliwiec et al., 2014). When evaluating healthy adults, short term consequences include increased stress responsivity, somatic pain, reduced quality of life, emotional distress, mood disorders, and more importantly, cognitive, memory and performance deficits. (Medic, Wille & Michiel, 2019). Fatigue is also a significant symptom, which causes a significant deterioration in cognitive and psychomotor skills. (Kahol, Leyba, Deka and Mayes, 2007). Symptoms of cognitive impairment, induced by sleep disturbance can include memory loss, repetition, struggle to recognise familiar people, places and objects, inappropriate decision making, erratic changes in mood or behaviour, speech problems and difficulty in planning and executing daily tasks. Cognitive decline does not follow a regular timeline, and therefore it is often called delirium, which in extreme cases can foreshadow severe medical problems. The cause of cognitive decline is not simple either, considering it is not caused by an underlying disease or condition, nor specific to an age group. For example, a combination of conditions such as dementia, stroke, traumatic brain injury and other developmental disabilities can increase the risk of cognitive decline.

The decrease and irregularity of neural activity due to lack of restoration

There has been substantial research on the negative impact the symptoms of insomnia, have on an individual’s executive function and reaction time. Ultimately, such results have also demonstrated an inability to focus or concentrate on a specific task, causing underlying incompetence for successful memory development. Sleep allows for the strengthening of nerve connections for memory formation (Verceles, 2015). Accordingly, one can see the strength of this literature when examining whole-brain activation results, indicating significant interaction in the right lateral frontal gyrus (rIFG) region. Studies further suggest that the role of rIFG is critical for inhibiting response trends (Aron, Robbins & Poldrack, 2014) and is related to both response and attentional control (Dodds, Morein-Zamor & Robbins, 2011). The rIFG is known as a ‘brake’, and it can be initiated to both suppress or pause a response when it becomes unnecessary or needs to be refined. Those who showed symptoms of insomnia displayed a decreased integrity in the left thalamus–pars triangularis tracts, which correlated with cognition and daytime sleepiness. These results may imply that insomnia leads to the disintegration of the white-matter tract between the left thalamus and inferior frontal gyrus.

Interestingly, the dorsal and ventral prefrontal cortex (PFC) form-critical regions in the working memory (WM) and executive function systems, that are fundamental to the maintenance and control of information in focus and attention, as well as minimising distraction during thought processing (De Dreu et al., 2012). Suggestive that functional impairment in ventral and dorsal PFC due to short-term sleep disturbance could impair divergent thinking by negatively impacting WM and executive function. Although the evidence above highlights PFC as a crucial target, the weakness of such pieces of literature lies in the uncertainty on how this effect would manifest itself. In part, this is because the neural effects of sleep loss have demonstrated variation and context-dependency. On the one hand, researchers have observed a high hemodynamic response profile (bold signal) concerning verbal learning and logical reasoning following sleep disturbance (Jonelis et al., 2012). The interpretation of this demonstrates the brain’s compensatory ability to counteract the impairment of normal brain function in the form of increased activity in the right lateral frontal gyrus (rlFG). While, evidence from working memory (WM) tasks, have demonstrated that sleep disturbance can lead to a reduction in the bold response in PFC (Chee & Chuah, 2008). This variability observed may be a function of task difficulty. For example, the cerebral compensatory response is more likely to be observed in tasks of great difficulty (Drummon et al., 2004). Additionally, research on the neuroscience of sleep loss has alluded that fluid intelligence is also a cause to individual variation when examining the vulnerability of thought processing and creativity abilities and also displayed variation in brain activation between ventral and dorsal PFC. Therefore, even short-term sleep disturbance leads to irregular changes occurring inside the body, which can create an off-balance, causing cognitive decline.

The inability to enhance thought processes to generate new solutions to new stimuli

Furthermore, the literature on short term sleep disturbance has demonstrated that individuals were unable to devise new solutions to new problems, but instead tried to use solutions of the previous problems, during a problem-solving task. To contrary belief, this effect was not driven by the participants’ loss of motivation or interest in the task, but rather, they were incapable of diverting their fixation on previously successful strategies (Horne, 1988 p. 535). In other words, sleep disturbance affected cognitive performance in the form of perseveration, a ‘difficulty in changing strategies.’ In neural terms, although engagement in thought processing activates a distributed network in the brain, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have shown most consistently less activation of the ventral and dorsal aspects of PFC (Kröger et al., 2012). In this sense, the impact of lack of sleep has caused vulnerability to the prefrontal cortex (Jones & Harrison, 2001), which can ultimately result to ‘a reversible functional lesion in the PFC’ (Lim & Dinges, 2010, p. 376), when considering long term sleep deprivation. Consequently, individuals become restricted to previous solutions, unable to focalise their attention to new stimuli, which is already a negative effect on their cognitive function.

Short term sleep disturbance does not affect a surgeon’s skills during night shifts

The literature on the positive impact of sleep disturbance seems to draw a fine line between sleep disturbance and a decrease in cognitive function. Several studies have demonstrated that surgeons’ work quality and skills have not diminished who experience sleep disturbances while on overnight shifts. Although one can say, acute call-associated fatigue seems to be a predominantly subjective perception. Physiological factors seem to outbalance an anticipated fatigue-associated impairment of technical performances within low-fidelity VR-tasks. In surgical residents, acute partial sleep disturbance seems to have a positive short-term effect on cognitive skills, leading to enhanced technical performance and increased physical alertness within complex tasks (Schlosser, 2012).

Further study has exhibited that sleep-deprived residents did not show any performance deficits on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test. Cognitive performance remained with no association with sleepiness measures (Reimann et al. 2009). Although there is no doubt that sleep deprivation as a long-term symptom, ultimately impairs human functioning, while typical surgical skills do not necessarily deteriorate with a limited amount of sleep disturbance when under clinical conditions (Lehmann et al. 2010). Hence, when put under constraining conditions, the cognitive function is not impacted, relative to the level of tiredness or sleepiness an individual may be presenting. For example, Amirian et al. (2014), reported that sleep-deprived surgeons did not show any impairment of psychomotor or cognitive performance during a 17-hour night shift. A conclusion from this literature, although not solidified, is that sleep disturbance seems to cause compensatory neural activation for the lack of function from no rest, which allows an individual to remain alert and more focused on detail.

The debate

Nevertheless, there is conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between sleep deprivation, rather than short term sleep disturbance and an individual’s cognitive function. Sleep disorders are common in aging and further increase with advancing age (Gadie et al., 2017). A meta-analysis concluded that persons with symptoms of insomnia displayed impairments in cognitive functioning within episodic memory, working memory and executive functioning (Fortier-Brochu et al., 2012). On the other hand, evidence conflicts, as some studies report no association between sleep disturbance and cognition, some even further hypothesise that sleep disturbance may even present better cognitive functioning. As a result, it seems research has shown a negative correlation between sleep disturbances and cognition; however, the question of the relationship between sleep disturbance and cognitive decline remains undefined.

Mechanisms linking sleep to poor cognitive outcomes or AD pathology

Multiple instruments account for the observed relationship of poor sleep with cognitive decline and AD pathology. Recently, studies are suggestive that sleep loss leads to neuronal damage that could mediate cognitive decline. Cross et al. (2013) employed proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), a neuroimaging technique that measures brain metabolites, in the aim of examining cross-sectional network between the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA; an index of neuronal health) and myo-inositol (mI; a measure of gliosis/neuronal injury) in the hippocampus and thalamus of healthy older adults (Cross et al., 2013). This established that more mediocre sleep quality was associated with higher mI in the hippocampus, suggesting that sleep loss may adversely affect this structure, which is central to memory. Conversely, brain aging may negatively affect cognition by undermining slow-wave sleep (SWS). Mander et al. (2013) proposed, the medial prefrontal cortex atrophy in the older population, may contribute to cognitive decline by limiting SWS and subsequently interfering with sleep-dependent memory consolidation (Mander et al., 2013), all part of a disruption to cognitive function.

Additionally, when examining the link between sleep loss to amyloid-beta (Aβ), Xie et al. showed that SWS increases Aβ clearance from the brain and that sleep loss may, as a result, enhance Aβ aggregation (Xie et al., 2013). To further explain these changes, recent findings showed that wakefulness increases synaptic strength, in which sleep then serves to downregulate (Tononi, 2009). They further referred to ‘in vivo’ and ‘in vitro’ studies exhibiting the increase of neural activity directly influenced increase in Aβ production (Bero et al., 2011), and argued that sleep loss might also alter Aβ levels through wake-related increases in synaptic strength. However, there are limitations to this study, and further research is needed to evaluate these mechanisms. Furthermore, sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) causes hypoxemia and sleep fragmentation, both of which may lead to cognitive decline and Aβ deposition. SDB interferes with sleep-dependent memory consolidation, which may mediate its effect on cognition (Djonlagic et al., 2014). Likewise, by limiting slow-wave sleep (SWS), sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) may also contribute to Aβ deposition through the mechanisms described above. SDB and sleep loss both are associated with increases in inflammation, which mediates the link between sleep disturbance and both cognitive decline and AD biomarkers (Blackwell et al., 2014).

Impact of the night shift on laparoscopic skills and cognitive function on gynaecologists

A study conducted to assess whether gynaecologists have impaired laparoscopic skills and reduced cognitive function after disrupted sleep, showed there was no evident impairment on their surgical performance. A VR procedural module was completed immediately after a 17.5h on call, which measured several parameters of performance, giving this study satisfactory reliability. Although the realism of the EP module can be debated, the transfer of VR skills to the operation room is generally well established and gynaecologists, showed normal cognitive function, although there were reports of an increase in reaction time. Another limitation is the lack of prospective studies. However, retrospective studies regarding post night-time surgical procedures have not found higher complication rates among patients operated during daytime by surgeons who had performed emergency procedures the night before. There was no evident deterioration of simulated laparoscopic skills compared with normal baselines. However, simple well-known procedures may promote motivational effort and reduce the negative impact of tiredness. While tedious tasks requiring vigilance become more prone to error when wakefulness is prolonged, but in new situations or emergencies, professionals seem to be able to mobilise additional energy to compensate for the short-effects of tiredness. The results of this study do not indicate impairment of simulated surgical skills or significant deterioration of cognitive function among gynecologists direct after only short-term sleep disturbance. (Veddeng et al., 2014)

The relationship between sleep deprivation and cognition has been speculated for quite some time now. This complex topic has continued to thrive through research instruments such as brain imaging studies. Even though there are limitations to this instrument, there are still many other subjective and objective measures that suggest that there is a strong correlation between lack of sleep and cognitive function. However, even though sleep deprivation causes cognitive decline, in some situations, short term sleep disturbance can cause additional and compensatory neural activity, which advances cognitive function. An increase in knowledge in this area is still needed to strengthen the use of music within society to assist individuals in their everyday life, especially with our society’s aging population.

DEFINITIONS OF SLEEP

Lack of sleep is a general term to portray a state brought about by insufficient amount or nature of rest, including deliberate or automatic restlessness and circadian musicality rest issue. Rest is as imperative to the human body as nourishment and water, yet huge numbers of us don’t get enough rest. Deficient rest, lacking nature of rest or interruptions to the rest wake cycle, (for example, those that happen with move work or making a trip to an alternate time zone) have ramifications for how we work in the daytime, causing languor and exhaustion. A languid exhausted individual is clumsy, judgment impeded and bound to settle on missteps and awful choices. Remaining alert for 24 hours prompts a decreased hand-to-eye coordination that resembles having a blood liquor substance of 0.1. In this way, lack of sleep adds to street mishaps and work wounds. Absence of rest can likewise influence a youngster’s school execution and could be connected to an expanded danger of passionate issues, for example, sorrow.

Causes / Long term effects

Basic reasons for lack of sleep include Personal decision – a few people don’t understand that the body needs enough rest. Rather than routinely hitting the hay at a sensible hour, they want to keep awake until late to mingle, stare at the TV or read a decent book. Sickness – ailments, for example, colds and tonsillitis can cause wheezing, choking and incessant waking, and directly affect rest by dividing it. Work – individuals who do move work upset their rest wake cycles all the time. Visit explorers (for instance, aircraft team) additionally will, in general, have inconsistent resting designs. Rest issue – issues, for example, rest apnoea, wheezing and intermittent appendage development issue can upset the individual’s rest commonly during the night. Meds – a few medications used to treat the issue, for example, epilepsy or consideration deficiency hyperactivity issue (ADHD) can cause sleep deprivation.

The resting condition – rest might be disturbed for a scope of natural reasons; for instance, because the room is excessively hot or cold or as a result of boisterous neighbours or a wheezing bed accomplice. Poor rest cleanliness – a few people’s propensities are troublesome; for instance, drinking espresso or smoking cigarettes near sleep time invigorate the sensory system and makes rest more uncertain. Another regular issue is lying in bed and stressing, as opposed to unwinding. Infants, more established infants, and babies – guardians quite often experience lack of sleep because their small kids wake much of the time in the night for sustaining or solace. Lack of sleep influences kids in various manners to grown-ups. Drowsy youngsters tend to ‘accelerate’ as opposed to back off. Indications include Moodiness and fractiousness, Temper fits of rage, the propensity to inwardly ‘detonate’ at the smallest incitement, Over-movement and hyperactive conduct, Daytime snooze, Grogginess when they get up toward the beginning of the day, Reluctance to get up in the first part of the day.

After around 16 hours of remaining alert, the body endeavours to adjust the requirement for rest. On the off chance that an individual doesn’t get enough rest, the mind gets rest through short rest assaults called microsleeps. This is a wild cerebrum reaction that renders an individual unfit to process ecological incitement and tactile data for a short measure of time. An individual’s eyes regularly stay open during microsleeps, however, they are basically ‘daydreamed.’ As the idea of these assaults is abrupt, the outcomes of a restless individual working substantial hardware or driving can be calamitous to both the person just as blameless observers. Microsleeps will keep on happening notwithstanding a person’s constrained Endeavor to remain conscious, and due to this inbuilt rest instrument, it is amazingly hard for a person to stay wakeful for over 48 hours in a row.

EFFECTS

Lack of sleep can contrarily influence the scope of frameworks in the body. It can have the accompanying effect: Not getting enough rest keeps the body from fortifying the resistant framework and delivering more cytokines to battle disease. This can mean an individual can take more time to recoup from the disease just as having an expanded danger of interminable sickness. Lack of sleep can likewise bring about an expanded danger of new and progressed respiratory ailments. An absence of rest can influence body weight. Two hormones in the body, leptin, and ghrelin, control sentiments of craving and satiety, or completion. The degrees of these hormones are influenced by rest. Lack of sleep additionally causes the arrival of insulin, which prompts expanded fat stockpiling and a higher danger of sort 2 diabetes. Rest encourages the heart vessels to mend and modify just as influencing forms that keep up the circulatory strain and sugar levels just as irritation control. Not resting enough expands the danger of cardiovascular sickness. Lacking rest can influence hormone creation, including development hormones and testosterone in men. You most likely realize firsthand that rest influences state of mind. Following a restless night, you might be progressively fractious, irritable, and helpless against stress. When you rest soundly, your state of mind regularly comes back to typical. Studies have demonstrated that even fractional lack of sleep significantly affects state of mind. College of Pennsylvania analysts found that subjects who were restricted to just 4.5 long periods of rest a night for multi week detailed inclination increasingly focused, irate, pitiful, and rationally depleted. At the point when the subjects continued typical rest, they announced an emotional perking up. In addition to the fact that sleep affects disposition, yet mind-set and mental states can likewise influence rest. Uneasiness expands unsettling and excitement, which make it difficult to rest. Stress additionally influences rest by making the body stirred, wakeful, and alert. Individuals who are under consistent pressure or who have strangely misrepresented reactions to stress will in general have rest issues.

Mental and Physical Effects on The Body

Lack of sleep happens whenever that you get less rest than your body needs. The level of lack of sleep can extend from complete intense rest misfortune to incessant hardship because of a decrease in the all-out rest time. This can happen more than one night or stretch over weeks, months, or even years. If somebody requires 9 hours of rest to feel rested, it is conceivable to move toward becoming sleepless by getting 8 hours of rest. Most of the physical symptoms from lack of sleep are moderately minor and, fortunately, effectively reversible. What’s more, the fix? Get some rest. On the off chance that you don’t rest enough, you might be looked with horde outcomes, including Sleep hardship imitates the impacts of drinking liquor—you may experience slurred discourse and uncontrolled reflexive developments of the eye called nystagmus. You may likewise build up a slight unsteadiness or tremor in your grasp. A few people even have an increasingly articulated sagging quality in their eyelids, called ptosis. Different other neurological reflexes can change in lack of sleep. These are probably not going to causes indications you would take note. In any case, if your primary care physician were to test them, you may have lazy corneal reflexes, a hyperactive muffle reflex, and hyperactive profound ligament reflexes. Also, you may have a decreased limit for seizures. Thus, individuals with epilepsy are at more serious hazard for seizures when they are restless. One thing that you may notice immediately is an expanded affectability to torment. Studies have demonstrated our affectability to warmth and weight agony is particularly improved when we don’t rest enough. Likewise, there is accounted for to be an expanded affectability to torment in our throat, as might happen in the setting of evening time acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux illness (GERD). Over the long haul, this may prompt an analysis of fibromyalgia or other constant torment conditions.

Treatment

Treatment is possibly required when an individual physically can’t get the opportunity to rest, because of either physical or mental troubles. An advisor or rest expert will have the option to offer direction and adapting strategies for arriving at a peaceful state and dozing. There are two primary roads of treatment for lack of sleep: Behavioural and intellectual measures and drugs. Conduct and psychological medicines There are various powerful strategies to upgrade rest that don’t require a prescription, including Relaxation methods: Progressive muscle unwinding including straining and unsending various muscles in the body to help quiet the body. Reflection strategies care to prepare, breathing activities, and guided symbolism can likewise help here. Sound accounts are accessible that can enable an individual to nod off around evening time. Incitement control: This includes controlling pre-sleep time exercises and surroundings to direct the dozing design. For instance, an individual controlling their upgrade would invest energy in bed just when they feel lethargic, which controls the relationship between being sleeping and feeling prepared to rest. Intellectual conduct treatment (CBT): This is a kind of treatment intended to help individuals comprehend and change the idea designs behind specific practices. It can challenge convictions that may not be sound and advance the sane, positive idea. CBT can assist an individual with developing a more advantageous resting design.

Medication / Prevention

When non-therapeutic treatment isn’t powerful, drugs are accessible that can help instigate rest. Some are accessible over-the-counter (OTC), and some are just accessible with a substantial remedy. There is a wide scope of accessible alternatives, including benzodiazepines, non-benzodiazepine hypnotics, and melatonin receptor opponents. Be that as it may, a few people structure a reliance on dozing drugs. It is essential to constrain the dose and attempt to utilize non-restorative estimates where conceivable. Lack of sleep can be connected to genuine mishaps and poor employment or school exhibitions. It can generously bring down a person’s general personal satisfaction. The absence of rest disturbs the cerebrum’s capacity to adjust feelings and thinking capacities, brings down the body’s characteristic resistances, and expands the odds of creating incessant restorative issues. While the periodic poor night’s rest is certifiably not a difficult issue in itself, determined lack of sleep can be. There is not a viable replacement for therapeutic rest. A specific measure of consideration ought to be taken to avert continuous lack of sleep in people everything being equal.

Recommendation

Hopefully, this has helped you to better understand the world of sleep deprivation, how it is caused, and the ways in which it can be treated. It is amazing how negatively you can be impacted by a lack of sleep, and the number of health conditions that can be caused by consistently missing out should be enough to make sure you get started on paying back your sleep debt. After all, it is your health and well-being on the line. Ensure that you are meeting your sleep needs. The average young adult needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to feel rested. Older adults, beyond the age of 65, may only need 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night on average.

Sleep is an important physiological need that every human beings and animals have, to keep the mind and body working well. We, the human, spent at least one in third of our lifetime sleeping. Research suggests and it is also well-known that sleeping plays a critical role in restoring our strength physically and mentally, and is closely related to our consciousness, memory and emotions. Studies through the decades have found that having good sleep or bad sleep will lead to a range of physical and mental diseases. Sleeping issues like insomnia, sleep deprivation and sleep apnea, have been harming us for a long time, which has negative effects to our physical and mental health as well as our life quality and satisfaction. As more and more people are now suffering from sleep problems, it triggers people’s attention on the issue of sleep. As we all know, sleep has huge impacts on our well-being. According to studies, numbers of people who used their brain a lot or are often engaged in brain activities have had sleeping problems and are also suffering from s lot of physical conditions led by poor sleep. Sleep issues are harming our health, affecting our daily life and lowering our quality of life.

College is the time that students used to learn their skills and broaden networks for future success in this competitive society and world. Busy and stressful learning and complicated social relationships push a lot of pressure on modern day college students, which significantly affects students’ sleep quality, pushing students to the edge of both physical and psychological collapse. The lack of qualitied sleep is linked to students’ poor academic performance, poor health and poor mental state. A lot of surveys and research conducted by noted organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO) and World Federation of Sleep Research Societies (WFSRS) found that huge numbers of university students today have sleeping problems such as insomnia, sleep deprivation, sleep apnea and other sleep issues.

Sleep disorder is such a huge problem today and needs to be address. It is important to figure out how to improve the sleep time and quality among our quality and the entire human beings. Studies are needed to examine the factors that contribute to the poor quality of sleep of students as we try to bring students good nights of sleep. So what actually leads to the students’ lack of sleep and lower sleep quality? Is it related to what grade the students are in? How does the grade level of students affect their sleep?

Students in different grade have different qualities of sleep. As daily noticed, freshman and juniors in the University of Washington are generally having better quality of sleep than sophomore and senior UW students. Sophomore and senior students seem to be busier and are always tired and willing to rest.

I operationalized the construct of “workload” By sending out questionnaire to random students at University of Washington and collecting the information like what grade they are in and how many homework do they get or how busy are they. The independent variable is the grade level and the dependent variables are workload and hours of sleep. I operationalized the construct of “health” by sending out questionnaire to random students at UW campus and collecting the information like the average hours slept per day. The independent variable is the grade level and the dependent variable is the average hours of sleep. I operationalized the construct of “sleep quality” by sending out questionnaire to random students at UW and collecting the information like how often they encounter any kind of sleep issues, and what sleep issues they often have. we split the answers from students into four groups, freshman, sophomore, junior and senior, and compare their average time of sleep per day and the chances/frequency of them having sleeping problems, to examine the sleep quality of students in different levels.

By knowing students in what level might have better sleep quality than students in other levels, we will be able to start figuring out why are freshman & junior students have higher quality of sleep than the others. My hypothesis is that freshman and juniors will have significantly more hours of sleep relative to sophomores and seniors. I also hypothesize that freshman and juniors will have better quality sleep than sophomores and seniors.

Sleep is an important activity that children, adolescents, adults, and even animals need in order to partake in daily functions. While this may be common knowledge for some, the why, and the how sleep affects daily activities is considerably more complicated. Sleep is vital for our neurosensory system, motor system, memory system, and brain plasticity over a person’s lifespan. Boyson (2016) discovered through Penn & Shatz (1999) that not enough sleep, specifically REM can cause problems with all the senses, motion, position, memory, and emotional and social learning. Overall, sleep is extremely important and necessary for everyday tasks, such as physical, cognitive and emotional functioning (Gruber, 2013).

While sleep is necessary for everyone, it is especially crucial for infants and their developing brain. The need for sleep is evident based on the number of hours a child sleep from the time they are born compared to late childhood. What many do not realize is that sleep is also important before the birth of a baby. As stated in Boysan (2016), Graven & Brown (2008) found that sleep starts at around 28 to 30 weeks in the gestational age, and helps with forming the sensory cortex and brain stem.

After birth is when we can start to determine how sleep affects the development of a child. Gruber (2013) discusses the developmental changes in sleep from newborns to adolescence. From newborn to twelve months, infants tend to spend much of their day sleeping. Gruber (2013) found through Sadeh, Raviv, and Gruber’s (2000) study that it is during this time the circadian system matures. The circadian system is known as an internal body clock that helps a person know when it is to sleep and when it is time to wake. Once the progression of the circadian system occurs, an infant is more likely to sleep through the night. This occurrence typically happens around six to nine months. During this developmental period, an infant’s amount of sleep remains consistent night to night, but it is specific to each individual child. As a child moves through life, sleep schedules will fluctuate. For instance, as an infant approaches early childhood, the ages between one and six, sleeping through the night becomes more common and eventually naps stop. It is during this stage of sleep development in which sleep disorders become noticeable. Those that cannot develop and maintain a routine sleep schedule are more susceptible to be diagnosed with sleep disorders. If a child needs the help of a caregiver, then he or she becomes reliant on that person to get back to sleep. This has the potential to lead to a problem. In this stage it is also important for the child to develop self-soothing methods (Gruber, 2013), which will also help with developing autonomy in the future. Although sleeping tends to decrease with age, it is still important for a child to get between nine and eleven hours of sleep. A 2016 study showed a positive correlation between significant improvements in childhood sleep and educational report cards (Gruber, Somerville, Bergmame, Fontil, & Paquin, 2016). This study verifies that healthy sleeping patterns are important for children and memory retention. Adolescents tend to display the most unique sleeping patterns, they like to stay up later at night and sleep in later in the morning than do children or adults. Although sleeping patterns start to vary in adolescents the need for proper sleep is still there. Studies have shown that sleep duration was correlated with bilateral hippocampal grey matter volume, which allows us to learn new things (Tarokh, Saletin, & Carskadon, 2016). Through their research, we can also prove that the brain is not yet done developing.

Although the sleeping schedules may be different across development, the sleep cycle remains the same. There are certain stages of sleep that we go through continuously while we are asleep. In general, the cycle lasts approximately 1.5 hours and occurs around 4 or 5 times throughout the night. The two sleep states consist of non-REM or NREM sleep, and REM sleep. NREM sleep consists of three stages and it is what an individual spends most of their time in. While asleep we spend around 80% of the total time asleep in Non-REM. Stage one of non-REM is the transition from being awake to being asleep. In this stage the body begins to slow down, such as ones breathing and heart rate. In this stage some people even experience sudden muscle movements due to their body relaxing. Stage two is still a light sleep, but the body continues to relax even more. Within this stage the body temperature drops, eye movements stop, and brain activity is very slow. The following stage, stage three of non-REM sleep is a stage that is necessary for a person to feel rested, and restored, ready to start their day. This stage is considered a deep sleep and tends to last longer in the beginning of the night. If it is hard to wake someone, he or she might be in stage three of non-REM sleep. The other state of sleep is REM sleep which starts when stage three, deep sleep ends. REM sleep usually begins around ninety minutes into a sleep. During this stage your brain is active, displaying brain waves as if you are awake, but certain parts of your body are paralyzed to prevent any action (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 2006).

Although all stages of sleep are important and needed to complete a sleep cycle, it seems that stage three, deep sleep and REM are the most important stages for functioning. “Deep sleep is essential for restoring the brain’s capacity to learn efficiently, especially in regions heavily activated during the day” (Fattinger et al., 2017). This may be a reason why sleep for children is more important and necessary, due to the amount children take in daily compared to adults. Fattinger et al.(2017) showed through their study that neuroplasticity is restored when an individual gets uninterrupted sleep and that deep sleep is warranted for learning. REM sleep is just as important. Li, Ma, Yang, & Gan (2017) found that “REM sleep has multifaceted functions in brain development, learning and memory consolidation by selectively eliminating and maintaining newly formed synapses via dendritic calcium spike-dependent mechanisms”.

As explained, research has shown the importance of sleep throughout life, but especially in the years that the brain is most plastic or when learning is occurring. Gruber, 2012 explains programs that can help educate people on sleep. First, these programs should come up with why sleep deprivation is occurring? Is it lifestyle choices, poor sleeping habits/changes in development or an actual sleep disorder? If the latter, an actual sleep disorder is possible, a professional will be needed. Interestingly, one of the barriers to sleep interventions that Gruber discusses is that school based interventions have taken place, but experimental evidence is low. According to Anderson & Tydesley (2019), Buckhalt et al. (2009) believes that school psychologists need to get involved because sleep deprivation negatively impacts educational success. Multiple studies that Anderson & Tydesley (2019) reviewed proved that the knowledge of sleep was limited among psychologists and it was Rydzowski et al. (2016) that believed educational psychologists could be part of the intervention process.

References

1. Anderson, J., & Tyldesley, K. (2019). Children and young people who present with sleep deprivation: An initial exploratory study using the Delphi technique with reference to potential competencies required for the initial training of educational psychologists. Educational and Child Psychology, 36(3), 77–91.
2. Boysan, M. (2016). Developmental implications of sleep. Sleep and Hypnosis, 18(2), 44–52.
3. Eagleman, D., & Downar, J. (2016). Sleep and the Brain. Brain and behavior: a cognitive neuroscience perspective (pp.310 – 334). New York: Oxford University Press.
4. Fattinger, S., de Beukelaar, T. T., Ruddy, K. L., Volk, C., Heyse, N. C., Herbst, J. A., … Huber, R. (2017). Deep sleep maintains learning efficiency of the human brain. Nature Communications, 8(1). doi: 10.1038/ncomms15405
5. Gruber, R. (2013). Making room for sleep: The relevance of sleep to psychology and the rationale for development of preventative sleep education programs for children and adolescents in the community. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 54(1), 62–71.
6. Gruber, R., Somerville, G., Bergmame, L., Fontil, L., & Paquin, S. (2016). School-based sleep education program improves sleep and academic performance of school-age children.
7. Sleep Medicine, 21, 93–100. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2016.01.012
8. Li, W., Ma, L., Yang, G., & Gan, W.-B. (2017). REM sleep selectively prunes and maintains new synapses in development and learning. Nature Neuroscience, 20(3), 427–437. doi:10.1038/nn.4479
9. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ninds.nih.gov/.
10. Tarokh, L., Saletin, J. M., & Carskadon, M. A. (2016). Sleep in adolescence: Physiology, cognition and mental health. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 70, 182–188. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.08.008

Sleep, it seems like college students can never get enough of it. I am certainly not an exception to that. Even during my days in Elementary school, I could never get enough sleep. Every night I find myself getting less and less sleep. The older I got the worse this has gotten.

The most amount of sleep I can remember getting is eight hours, and that was very early in my childhood. I would say probably around the age of nine or 10. Once I hit 11 I noticed a steady decline in the amount of time I was sleeping. I went from a solid eight to around a decent seven. By the time I started high school I was averaging five hours of sleep per night. Which is only three hours less than when I was nine however, it still had a huge impact. I constantly found myself struggling to stay awake in class, fighting the urge to rest my head on the desk and pass out. Sometimes, I did fall asleep in class and this tremendously affected my grade.

Eventually, I decided that it would be best to just try to sleep on the bus ride to school. This definitely helped a little however, it was still a fight to stay awake. I noticed a lot of different emotional changes as well. I was easily irritated, and my anxiety was also heightened. I didn’t really understand why- I still don’t. Flash forward to today, I am struggling to get 5 hours of sleep. I noticed, occasionally I do not sleep at all. Typically, the weekends are when I find myself getting the most sleep. On the weekends I can sleep close to eight-12 hours, which is a drastic change from the barely five I get during the week. Nonetheless, I still feel deprived and drained even after eight-12 hours of sleep.

Sleep deprivation can be very detrimental in many different ways. Microsleeps are just one of many detriments that sleep deprivation causes. Microsleeps are periods of sleep that only last a couple of seconds during wakefulness. After only missing, one night of sleep people can develop microsleeps. There is an abundance of other issues that can be caused by missing one or more nights of sleep. Each of these issues can affect people differently and have negative aspects to them. These issues can include disturbances in mood, reaction time and/or complex motor skills. In addition, people who miss one or more nights of sleep can also experience disturbances in mental abilities and/or perceptual skills. That’s a lot for only missing one night of sleep (Hockenbury & Nolan 2018).

Furthermore, if you get four hours or less of sleep your concentration and memory can be weakened, along with your reaction time. When your motor skills are weakened you are at greater risk of being in a car accident. Similarly, getting 4 hours or less of sleep can have negative impacts on your mood (Hockenbury & Nolan 2018).

Additionally, changes in hormone levels occur, these changes are very negative. For example, an increase in stress hormone levels. These hormone levels increase because the chemicals that are in charge of sleep also help to lower stress hormones (‘How Does Stress Affect Sleep?’). The immune system is also compromised; therefore it is easier to catch colds or get infections. Your metabolism can also be negatively affected, as stated by Hockenbury and Nolan these “…[include] changes linked to obesity and diabetes.” Changes like that can very negatively affect your health and well-being. Equally, people who get little sleep tend to eat more. Eating more causes said people to gain weight in a very unhealthy manner. As a matter of fact, sleep deprivation can cause you to make less healthy food choices, consequently causing you to eat high-calorie food like cake or french fries. The opposite can be said about people who get a good amount of sleep per night (Hockenbury & Nolan 2018).

Looking at sleep deprivation has helped me realize my negative behaviors. The nights I haven’t been sleeping have been greatly impacting me, more so than I originally thought. I thought that I was fine and that missing a night or two of sleep was fine, and that I’d eventually make up the sleep I had missed. This ideology is wrong. Looking back, I can even notice some of these negative impacts. Especially, when I look at the nights I get four or fewer hours of sleep. I have noticed changes in my concentration, as compared to on the weekends when I get more sleep. I feel on the weekends I am more focused and can achieve more, whereas during the week I can really struggle. This is due to the fact that I am sleep deprived. I also noticed that I am more likely to eat unhealthy foods during the week, as opposed to the weekends when I get more sleep. I have also noticed some changes in my metabolism. This could be purely coincidental since these changes started very early on. However, I started noticing sleep deprivation at a young age so it could also be a consequence of my sleep deprivation or it could just be a result of how my body works and functions.

I still, however, have a few unanswered questions. First and foremost, what is the best way to change my sleeping habits? I know they are dangerous and causing me to falter but what is the best first step to getting back on track? Why does this happen? Why does not sleeping have such a negative effect on the brain? Is it because the brain is almost like a computer and needs to reboot? Or is it something different? Can I ever get back on the right track or are these negative effects permanent?

Its a well known fact that a decent night’s sleep makes us feel much better. Apart from the fact that sleep gives us body time to rest and revive, it might likewise be pivotal to our brain’s capacity to learn and remember. This may not be brand new information to any individual who has pulled an all-nighter preparing for an exam just to discover that what they knew at 3 a.m wouldn’t be able to be recalled the following day. New memories are shaped inside the brain when an individual comes across something that needs to be learned (for instance, remembering some words or acing a piano concerto). However , these new memories are at first very defenseless; so as to ‘stick’ , they should be stabilized and improved. This happens when associations between synapses just as between various areas in the brain are fortified, and for a long time was accepted to grow only as an entry of time. A while ago , nonetheless, it has been shown that time spent sleeping assumes a key job in retaining memory. Without sufficient sleep, our brain gets foggy, our judgment gets worse and our ability to focus and learn is impaired. Lack of sleep and rest disturbances results in extreme psychological and awareness issues. According to a research conducted by WWF, animals which are denied of sleep for a couple of weeks depict temperature and weight dysregulation and eventually lose their life due to contaminations and tissue injuries .

Sleep is a one of a kind phenomenon where our body neglects to react to cognizant signals from outside effects called external stimuli however our brain is still able to work in areas which are related to learning and memory in various regions. It happens in ordinary interims and is also homeostatically directed meaning that a postponement or loss brings about delayed and prolonged sleep. Slow-wave sleep is the phase at which we sleep in the most profound way. This sort of sleep guarantees recuperation of muscle and mind wellbeing, and in the association of memory. The amount and nature of the sleep actually influences an individual’s capacity to recall, and sleep is the time where the cerebrum combines recollections. Over a decade, research has shown the way that sleep benefits the maintenance of memory. The capacity and ability to shape memory is basic to the key adjustment of a life form to ever-changing ecological and natural demands. Research showing that sleep is beneficial to memory goes back to the start of trial memory findings , and from that point forward have been fitted with very various ideas. This text focuses on ‘rest and memory’ , which has encountered a novel renaissance during the last decade.

Sleep in well evolved creatures comprises of two stages, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and fast eye-development (REM) rest, which interchange in a cyclic way. In human nighttime rest, SWS is dominating during the early part and diminishes in force and length over the sleeping time frame, though REM sleep turns out to be increasingly exceptional and broad towards the finish of the sleeping time frame.

In spite of the fact that the precise components are not known, learning and memory are regularly depicted with three basis; Acquisition,Consolidation and Review .Acquisition means new data coming into the brain. Consolidation speaks to the procedures by which a memory gets intact. Review alludes to the ability to get to the data (regardless of whether deliberately or unknowingly) after it has been put away. Every one of these means is important for functioning of the memory . Acquisition and review happen during the time when you are alert and awake, yet research of this topic shows that consolidation only happens during the sleeping time through the neural networks that govern memories. In spite of the fact that there is no accord about how a sleep performs this procedure , numerous scientists believe that particular attributes of brainwaves during various phases of sleep are related with the development of specific sorts of memory.

There is an interesting revelation recently which has provided ways to conduct therapies in the future for people with sleep deprivation. Most of us require around 8 hours of sleep each night to keep up ideal physical and emotional wellness. However, we see some people around us who appear to flourish off only four to six hours out of each night, with no adverse results. UC San Francisco has recently found out the gene which is legitimately associated with these ‘short sleepers’ and tests uncover that this same gene additionally stops and cures issues frequently connected with lack of sleep. Over 10 years ago, a group of specialists found the principal gene that was connected to healthy short sleeping cycles. While examining a lady who easily slept around 4 hours every night, the specialists revealed the primary proof that the span of the sleeping time can be to some degree directed by genetics.

This mutation in the gene is believed to be outstandingly uncommon, causing over-articulation of proteins that activate alertness pathways in the cerebrum . A mouse study uncovered lack of sleep upset the creatures’ capacity to successfully remember fear based events yet mice reproduced with the mutated gene appeared to frame viable memories even after lack of sleep. The ramifications of this new disclosure are captivating and presents an objective for future treatments that may assist with treating sleep deprivation or disorder issues.

Specialists have recognized the accumulation of adenosine as an explanation of lack of sleep which then influences the ability to memorize . Obviously, caffeine is an approach to alleviate the impacts of adenosine, which may clarify why many students nowadays drink a lot of espresso and caffeinated drinks.

Keeping up a sound way of life while getting good sleep regularly can definitely be look like a hard job, particularly when you are worried with a work cutoff time or test. However, always remember , sleep is your companion. Along these lines, with regards to learning and memory, you have to sleep on it. What’s sure is that sleep is a natural need that we need to endure. Sadly, these days, not many of us can get the rest and sleep we need, to work our best. Specialists prescribe and advise adults to get 8 hours of sleep every night. In spite of the fact that this may not be feasible consistently, it ought to be the objective.

While our sleeping habits have fallen behind in priority as a result of our fast-paced lifestyles, humanity must learn to hold adequate sleep to utmost importance in order to maintain peak physical and mental well-being, and to avoid the disastrous effects of deprivation. As the complexity of the sleep process is often overlooked, appreciating sleep means understanding the intricate biological workings behind it. The need for sleep is controlled by the body’s drive for homeostasis, making it just as important as food, water, respiration, and all other homeostatic activities. As is the case with any homeostatic imbalance, a lack of sufficient sleep can have devastating effects on every part of the body. Nonetheless, people of all ages have been following a trend of decreasing sleep over the years, and the consequences are showing up in numerous ways. There are many reasons for this trend, but the prevalence of sleep disorders is a major issue that calls for more attention. As our society moves into a more nocturnal state, we must adjust our outlook of sleep to recognize that it may be the cause- and vital solution- of many problems facing us today.

Anatomy of Sleep

Circadian Rhythms

To begin with, fully comprehending the importance of sleep involves first gaining a better understanding of what sleep is. We tend to not give much thought to the process of sleeping, and the many complex neurological and biological tasks that it entails. Sleep, or rather the sleep-wake cycle, is controlled by a biological pattern known as a circadian rhythm; this refers to the cycle of bodily processes and changes that take place over the span of twenty-four hours. The sleep-wake cycle is not the only physiological process controlled by an individual’s circadian rhythm: others include body temperate and blood pressure. (OpenStax, 2017, p113) All circadian rhythms are controlled by a specific area of the brain, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is located in the hypothalamus. The SCN, connected to light-detecting retinal cells that transmit information regarding the cycle of day and night, is what allows the brain to be in sync with the external world and the concept of time. (Colten & Altevogt, 2006, p42-43) The importance of the body’s circadian cycles cannot be overlooked, as these are what allows for an organism to function properly and survive through maintaining homeostasis. (OpenStax, 2017, p113) Despite being regulated by the same rhythm, abnormal sleep patterns are not treated with the same urgency as abnormal body temperate or blood pressure, which can both be causes of immediate medical concern.

Stages of Sleep

However, circadian rhythm and the sleep-wake cycle are not the only patterns that must be taken into account when discussing the importance of sleep. Sleep itself is a process involving different types and stages, which play different roles in the proper functioning of one’s waking brain. The first type of sleep is non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, which can be further categorized into four distinct stages of brain activity. The first stage of sleep, stage 1, is the process by which your body begins making the transition into the unconscious state when you are first beginning to fall asleep. During these few minutes, your heartbeat and rate of breathing slow, accompanied by a reduction in bodily tension and temperature. Even the brain waves that characterize this stage are those of an individual in tremendous relaxation. (OpenStax, 2017, p121) Stage 2 sleep is relatively similar to stage 1, but waking a person becomes more difficult as the sleeping individual’s condition of relaxation deepens. For the most part, stage 1 and 2 sleep consists of low frequency, high amplitude alpha and theta waves, but studying brain waves in this stage has also revealed the existence of sleep spindles, which are sudden spurts of high-frequency waves. Stage 3 and 4 sleep are called slow wave sleep because of the extremely low frequency and high amplitude delta waves that characterize these two stages, but they can be better described as “deep sleep.” During stage 4 sleep, waking an individual becomes much more difficult of a task. The fifth stage of sleep, in which most dreaming transpires, is known as rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep. In this stage, a person’s eyes will dart around under their eyelids as if they are looking about. In normally-functioning REM sleep, the individual will go into a state of paralysis so as not to move around when dreaming. REM sleep, which has been associated with homeostatic regulation, is believed to be important for memory development, learning, and even emotional processing. (OpenStax, 2017, p124) Despite the stages being listed in numerical order, a person will often shift between different stages throughout the night.

How Sleep Affects the Body

The Brain and Cognition

Although the roles of the different stages of sleep are still being debated among researchers, the overall importance of sleep cannot be overstated. Sleep debt (SD) is the medical term for a chronic lack of sleep, usually in regards to an individual who averages less than 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night. (OpenStax, 2017, 116). Despite being a relatively modern issue, scientists are already beginning to realize the severity of SD consequences. While many researchers argue that a sleep-deprived individual cannot “make up” for a lack of sleep, SD has been shown to be cumulative. (Williams, L., 2017, p27). Acute sleep debt can affect almost every aspect of an individual’s cognition, such as memory, processing speed, and decision making. According to modern brain imaging, it is believed that SD directly impacts the brain’s frontal lobe, which is responsible for most cognitive tasks. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B., 2006, p142) Perhaps the most noticeable cognitive performance issue affected by sleep debt is the prevalence of spontaneous microsleeps, in which a person remains physically “awake,” but ceases to process information for a brief period of time. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B., 2006, p138) In other words, they are physically present but not mentally present. Other cognitive deficiencies caused by sleep loss, which often go unnoticed by the sufferers, include lapses in attention span, increased errors in thinking and judgement while under pressure, slower response times, a reduced ability to learn and remember new cognitive tasks, and a general decline in cognitive performance. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B., 2006, p139-141) Interestingly, the sleep spindles found in stage 2 sleep are thought to be important for the development and retention of memories and learned skills. (OpenStax, 2017, p122).

Other Organs and Organ Health

Furthermore, the brain is not the only organ affected by sleep debt; SD can negatively impact the functioning of many other bodily systems and have acute adverse effects on one’s health. It is common knowledge that obesity is becoming a major epidemic in the modern world, particularly in the United States, but diet and lack of activity are not the only contributing factors: sleep loss has been shown by multiple studies to have a direct correlation with weight gain ands obesity rates. One study found that among 500 adults, those who slept less than 6 hours per night were 7.5 times more likely to be overweight. A study of one-thousand adults revealed a U-curve relationship between sleep and BMI; those who slept too much or too little had high BMIs while individuals who got the proper amount of sleep for the age had the lowest BMIs. Additionally, people who slept too little had increased levels of the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin, and decreased levels of the hormone appetite-suppressing hormone leptin. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B., 2006, p59-60) SD is also associated with increased likelihood of diabetes, brought on by changes in the breakdown of glucose and in the production of leptin and ghrelin. (Maurovich-Horvat, Pollmächer, & Šonka, 2008, p276) Regardless of weight, adults who sleep 5 hours or less have a 2.5 times greater chance of developing type 2 diabetes. The impaired glucose tolerance associated with diabetes can also lead to cardiovascular disease, which may explain why individuals who get 5 hours of sleep or less on a chronic basis show a 45% increase in risk of heart attacks. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B., 2006, p61-62)

Sleep Deprivation by Age Groups

Children

Nevertheless, age must always be taken into account when it comes to sleep, as sleep patterns and requirements, and the effects of sleep deprivation, change drastically with age. Unsurprisingly, children require the most sleep. From birth to about 3 months of age, infants require 12 to 18 hours of sleep each day. This number gradually lessens as the child ages, and by age 10, he or she only needs about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. (OpenStax, 2017, p116) As children grow older, they are more likely to experience difficulties in getting enough sleep than when they were younger. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B. , 2006, p46) Unfortunately, not much research has been done regarding sleep deprivation prevalence in children, which just goes to show how overlooked the issue is. However, there has been much recent interest in the similarities between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the effects of SD in school-aged children. Sleep deprivation has been shown to inhibit parts of the frontal and temporal brain lobes through the neurotransmitter GABA, which can result in “symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, risk-taking behavior, poor concentration, mild cognitive impairment, and generally poor performance.” (Samaan, W.A., 2014, p82) Many children that have been diagnosed with ADHD may simply be suffering from the detrimental effects of chronic sleep deprivation, and could experience symptom alleviation from getting proper sleep.

Adolescents

Meanwhile, contrary to popular belief, adolescents actually require just as much sleep as children in order to function properly (Carskadon, M, 2002, p2). However, studies have shown a worldwide trend of declining sleep times as individuals progress through adolescence. In a 2006 poll of 1602 teenagers in the US, the average weeknight sleep duration of 6th graders was 8.4 hours, while that of 12th graders was only 6.9 hours. According to the poll, sleep duration was higher on weekends across the board, usually because of later waking times. However, this extra sleep not only fails to make up for what is lost, but it may also impact an individual’s circadian clock so that the effects of sleep debt are felt even more strongly on Monday morning. (Kaplan, D, Sass, A, 2010, p409-410) According to the Youth Risk Behavior Study done in 2007, only 7.6% of high school students slept for at least 9 hours on average, while 68.9% got less than 8 hours of sleep per night. (Kaplan, D & Sass, A, 2010, pxii) A major contributing factor of sleep loss in teenagers is the global pattern of delayed sleep onset as adolescents get older. In other words, older teenagers gravitate towards later bedtimes: several studies have shown that while 13-year-olds typically sleep around 10:00 pm on school nights, high school seniors and college freshmen are more likely to fall asleep between 11:00 pm and 2:00 am. (Kaplan, D & Sass, A, 2010, p495) There are many factors that could explain this change, including homework, sports, work, relationships, technology use and technological light exposure, and hormonal time shifts. To further increase the severity of this pattern, high schools often start earlier than elementary schools, with 42% of public high schools beginning before 8:00 am. (Kaplan, D & Sass, A, 2010, p494; National Adolescent and Young Adult Health Information Center, 2014, p1) The sleep deprivation felt by today’s youth is having damaging effects on their academic performance, particularly in university undergraduates. In a study done of 136 adolescents in college, groups that got more sleep each night had significantly higher GPAs than those who got less; 9 to 10 hours of sleep was associated with an average GPA of 3.76, whereas those who slept 3 to 4 hours had an average of 2.91. (Hampton, T, 2005, p31) The phenomenon of more sleep equating to higher grades was also supported by a Finnish study of 5,831 students, in which 3 hours of additional sleep was the difference between an average GPA of 2.74 and 3.24. (Curcio, Ferrara & Gennaro, 2006, p327) The story does not end at worsened academic performance, however. Acute sleep debt in young people also leads to thousands of accidental deaths each year, with unintentional injury being the number one killer of teenagers. 69% of these deaths are caused by motor vehicle accidents. (Kaplan, D & Sass, A, 2010, p500.) Meanwhile, 20% of all car accidents are attributed to driver sleepiness, which impairs a person’s ability to drive in the same ways as alcohol consumption. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B. , 2006, p148) In one 2013 study of 8 public schools, simply pushing school start times from 7:35 am to 8:55 am resulted in a 70% decrease of teenage motor vehicle accidents. (National Adolescent and Young Adult Health Information Center, 2014, p2) All this shows that adequate sleep could not only help students perform better academically, it could even save their lives.

Adults

Likewise, while adults require less sleep than children and adolescents, the importance of sleep and the prevalence of chronic sleep deprivation is no less significant among people over the age of 20. Numerous studies have shown that adults, on average, require 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night to maintain peak mental and physical health and performance. (Williams, L., 2017, p2) Thirty-five years ago, the average adult slept 7.7 hours each night, but recent reports show that nowadays, nearly 1 in 5 adults receive insufficient sleep. This worrying loss of sleep in adults can be primarily attributed to changes in society. Of these changes, the most significant is the new reliance on shift work, which is directly correlated with chronic sleep debt and disturbed circadian rhythms. In modern times, 20% of the workforce works in shifts. In fact, within 10 years alone, the number of people working between midnight and 5:30 am increased by 24%. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B. , 2006, p57) Sleep deprivation affects adults in the same way as it affects youth, but in the case of said adults, the effects of sleep deprivation manifest themselves most disastrously in work-related accidents and injuries. A longitudinal study done on 50,000 working Swedish adults revealed that those who experienced sleep disturbances were nearly twice as likely to die on the job. In another study done in the Netherlands, workers experiencing extreme fatigue- a common effect of sleep debt- had a 70% higher likelihood of being involved in a work-related accident than their coworkers. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B. , 2006, p149-150) Additionally, sleep loss, usually resulting from shift work and long working hours, is often felt most strongly by medical workers. According to the Institute of Medicine, fatigue in hospital workers contributes greatly to medical errors, which result in nearly 98,000 deaths per year in the United States alone. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B. , 2006, p144) In fact, worker fatigue is such a significant threat to public health that many well-known workplace accidents, such as the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear disasters and the Bhopal disaster in Inda, have been partially attributed to sleep-deprived workers. (Colten, H., & Altevogt, B. , 2006, p138) No amount of safety regulations can prevent the threat to public and individual safety caused by the increase in adult sleep deprivation.

Sleep Disorders

While school, work, and changes in society contribute heavily, another primary cause of sleep deprivation across the board is sleep disorders. In fact, sleep disorders are so prevalent that between 30% and 50% of the population will experience some type of sleep disorder in their lifetime, depending on the population being studied. (OpenStax, 2017, p126) There are many different kinds of sleep disorders, but they can be classified into three distinct categories: insomnia, hypersomnia, and parasomnia. (Wilson & Nutt, 2008, p17) Insomnia is characterized by a lack of sleep, difficulty falling asleep, and low quality sleep that fails to leave an individual feeling refreshed. The most prevalent type of sleep disorder, it is a major public health problem that affects 10-15% of the population. (Wilson & Nutt, 2008, p29) The percentage of people that experience insomnia-like symptoms is actually larger, as a sufferer must experience these symptoms at least three times a week for a month in order to be considered an insomniac. Aside from lying in bed for long periods of time before finally falling asleep, individuals with insomnia may also frequently wake up during the night and then struggle to fall asleep again. Often, this pattern of sleep difficulty is a self-perpetuating cycle, as insomniacs may become anxious about not being able to fall asleep, which further prevents sleep from occurring. (OpenStax, 2017, p126) Hypersomnia, which is defined as excessive daytime sleepiness for several days each week, affects 16% of the population, with another 37% reporting these symptoms for a few days each month. The third category of sleep disorders is parasomnias. (Wilson & Nutt, 2008, p39) There is a large variety of disorders listed as parasomnias, but they are all categorized by the same thing: unusual and disruptive motor activity, behavior, and experiences during sleep. (OpenStax, 2017, p126) Among such disorders are sleepwalking, night terrors and nightmares, and sleep paralysis. Parasomnias can not only disturb the individual with the disorder, they can also result in acute sleep loss for parents and spouses. (Wilson & Nutt, 2008, p51-60)

Tips and Techniques for Better Sleep

However, despite the widespread harmful effects of sleep deprivation, and the prevalence of sleep loss and sleep disorders, the outlook on sleep in modern society is far from hopeless; there are many steps an individual can take to improve his or her own sleeping habits. First and foremost, sleeping and waking around the same time each day, including weekends, allows one to maintain a steady circadian rhythm. This, in turn, is key to maintaining homeostasis. Additionally, it is best to avoid or limit stimulants, such as caffeine and nicotine; it can take up to eight hours for the effects to wear off. In fact, alcohol, which has sedative depressant properties, should also be avoided before bed. Although it can help someone fall asleep faster, it can also prevent them from moving into the deeper stages of sleep. Moreover, exercise can both encourage and prevent healthy sleeping patterns. At least 30 minutes of exercise each day is recommended for proper energy expenditure, but exercising within two or three hours before bed can make it difficult to fall asleep. Likewise, naps should also be avoided in the late afternoon. Relaxation rituals, such as reading or taking a hot bath, can prove incredibly beneficial, as these activities can calm the mind and prepare one’s body for the first stages of sleep. An individual’s sleep environment may be one of the most influential factors in sleep quality. Although some people prefer to have some kind of light on when sleeping, a cool, dark, quiet, and comfortable atmosphere free of sudden noises is ideal. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006, p4) Proper bright light exposure and dark exposure are significantly important for maintaining healthy sleeping patterns, as light exposure controls melatonin production and an individual’s biological clock. (OpenStax, 2017, p115) These simple tips can be followed by anyone to improve the quality and quantity of their sleep, but are particularly beneficial in combating sleep deprivation in students and shift workers, as well as alleviating some symptoms of certain sleep disorders.

Conclusion

In conclusion, sleep is a complex bodily function that influences every aspect of an individual’s capabilities and health, and must be prioritized as so. Although sleep has been a topic of interest for centuries, and scientists have made so many recent advances in the study of sleep, our understanding of its purpose is still limited. After all, sleep is a complicated process, not just a period of unconsciousness. However, it is clear that adequate sleep is necessary for reaching the full potential of one’s cognitive abilities, such as reasoning, memory development, and emotional control. Furthermore, with sleep being a primary part of a body’s circadian rhythm, no organ can function properly without it; healthy amounts of sleep can even aid in combatting obesity and illness. People of all ages are missing out on the benefits of being well-rested. In fact, the modern issue of chronic sleep deprivation, caused in part by sleep disorders but also by societal changes, is now manifesting itself in every way imaginable. Nonetheless, there are many easy steps that can be taken to practice healthy sleeping habits and patterns. As the global society moves into a new era of technological and medical advancements, the importance of sleep should not be forgotten. Instead, the only way our society can transition smoothly through this time of change is by accepting and benefitting from the primal clock that drives our every bodily function.