Sleep Synthesis Essay

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Seven hours ago, the sun set. It is currently 1:30 AM, and you’re still tossing in bed: awake, alert, and annoyed. Does that sound familiar? Or perhaps this strikes a louder bell: You had drifted off quickly, sinking into a slumber that should have provided your body with the precious rest it deserves, but upon awakening, your alarm has not yet gone off yet, and the clock says 2 o’clock AM. And from then on, its familiar digits slowly inched toward morning as you watched. Sleep had abandoned you. In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that “an estimated 50–70 million adults in the United States have chronic sleep and wakefulness disorders" ("Unhealthy Sleep-Related Behaviors"). This was approximately 20% of the population. So what is causing all this trouble? The Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research says it could be your circadian rhythm, which “acts as an internal clock guiding such things as your sleep-wake cycle” ("Insomnia"). Your circadian rhythm is regulated by a neurohormone called melatonin, which as Johns Hopkins sleep expert Luis F. Buenaver, Ph.D., C.B.S.M. explains, “As melatonin levels rise in the evening, it puts you into a state of quiet wakefulness that promotes sleep” (qtd. in “Melatonin for Sleep”).

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