In today’s world, we are surrounded by innovative technology that helps us speed up our day to day lives. We can now communicate, learn, and process information faster than ever. As people’s daily tasks become faster, it seems less time is focused on other important tasks. Many people today are so focused on their busy lives and work schedules, that they are beginning to neglect an important process of the body known as sleep. Sleep is not only a vital process but it also helps the body restore from injury or illness, process information and memories, and renew cognitive brain function. Sleep also helps to boost the immune system, and supply energy so someone can function throughout their day. A healthy sleep schedule is so essential to someone’s …show more content…
Sleep has played an important role people’s cultures for many years. It has been the center of many cultural stories, and it was even believed that sleep slowed down our bodies natural processes. Throughout time, many cultures have tried to give reasoning behind how people fall asleep. The Greeks believed that blood filling the vessels is what caused the brain to sleep, and in the middle ages they thought it was the effect of “animal humors.” Whatever the reason for how we fall asleep, many cultures have tried to delve deeper into the mysteries of sleep. Today, researchers believe that sleep is not caused from inactivity in the brain, but rather sleep itself is an active process. This means that the process of sleep stems from activity within the brain, resulting in the different cycles of sleep or the REM cycles. The different cycles determine how deep a person’s sleep is, and its effectiveness. Most of the information regarding sleep cycles was not made apparent until the 1960s. It seems that science has only began to learn about sleep and its functionality within the brain and people’s lives. (sleep and dreaming pg 15). Morever, Sleep can be a difficult thing to determine in an individual. A person could have their eyes closed and body still, but may not be sleeping. That is why researchers use a polysomnography to study the different stages of sleep. A polysomnography records a person’s brain waves, eye movements, and neck muscle tension. The recordings of the brain, eye movement, and neck muscle tension, are all contributing factors in the process of sleep. By measuring each, researchers are able to better measure the effects of sleep on the body and the brain. It’s through these recordings that brain wave characteristics of sleep begin appear, and the process of nautral sleep occurs. A researcher may also take recordings from other organs such as these
Many college students suffer from sleep deprivation; only a few students would say that they are getting enough rest at night. Sleep deprivation is caused by not receiving the amount of sleep that the human body needs to function properly throughout the day. Sleep deprivation has many causes and effects that most often lead to depression, physical illness, learning problems, and irregular sleep patterns; Elizabeth Austin offers two solutions to help college students cope with sleep deprivation.
The public health problem that I am addressing is the lack of sleep. The target population will be adolescents and college students in America. Sleep is important to health because the timing, quality, and duration are essential. Sleep plays a big role in good health and well-being throughout your life. How you feel when you are awake comes from how well you slept at night. Sleep has a direct correlation with metabolic regulation, emotional regulation, performance, memory consolidation, learning, and brain recuperation process. Because of these factors it should be viewed as just as important
Chronic sleep loss is becoming more common in modern culture and less restricted to sleep-deprived diseases such as insomnia. Suggested to be the result of a number car, industrial, medical, and other occupational accidents, sleep deprivation is beginning to be recognized as a public concern. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control
Sleep deprivation is a commonplace occurrence in modern culture. Every day there seems to be twice as much work and half as much time to complete it in. This results in either extended periods of wakefulness or a decrease in sleep over an extended period of time. While some people may like to believe that they can train their bodies to not require as much sleep as they once did this belief is false (1). Sleep is needed to regenerate certain parts of the body, especially the brain, so that it may continue to function optimally. After periods of extended wakefulness or reduced sleep neurons may begin to malfunction, visibly effecting a person's behavior. Some organs, such as muscles, are able to regenerate even when a person is not sleeping so long as they are resting. This could involve lying awake but relaxed within a quite environment. Even though cognitive functions might not seem necessary in this scenario the brain, especially the cerebral cortex, is not able to rest but rather remains semi-alert in a state of "quiet readiness" (2). Certain stages of sleep are needed for the regeneration of neurons within the cerebral cortex while other stages of sleep seem to be used for forming new memories and generating new synaptic connections. The effects of sleep deprivation on behavior have been tested with relation to the presence of activity in different sections of the cerebral cortex.
When most people think of sleep, they think of it as a relaxed but yet not a very important part of our daily lives. What most people don’t understand is although we are not up and moving around and getting tasks completed, our brains are still very active. Without sleep our bodies do not function correctly on a daily basis, and our mental state is at risk.
Sleep is one of our basic needs to survive and to function in day to day operations, but not everyone needs the same amount of sleep. Some people can survive on very little sleep, i.e. five hours a night, and some people need a lot of sleep, to the extend that they are sleeping up to 10 to sometimes 15 hours a night (Nature, 2005). According to Wilson (2005) the general rule states that most people need from seven to eight hours of sleep. The deprivation of sleep in our society in continually increasing with the demands in society increasing work loads, the myth that a few hours of sleep is only necessary to function properly and that sleep is sometimes considered as killing time (Nature, 2005). Sometimes sleep deprivation is also caused by other situations like sleep disorders, i.e. sleep apnea, chronic insomnia or medical conditions such as stress (Wilson, 2005).
Sleep deprivation (SD) is a common phenomenon encountered by many individuals with different professions. [3] These professions include healthcare, security and drivers working at night. [1] The average length of sleep that an individual needs is between 7 and 8.5h per day. [quoted in 1] However, this varies between individuals with different age and gender. Pilcher and Huffcutt found that both total and partial SD give adverse effects on human functioning. [2] Researchers have concluded that sleep deprivation affects cognitive performance [1,2], motor performance and mood of an individual. [2]
There have been many different outlooks and theories on how sleep deprivation can affect health. Sleep deprivation is when a person cannot sleep, and does not have enough sleep. This is also known as ‘wakefulness’ (sleep.2014) and not having enough sleep; ‘lack of sleep’. This literature review will cover four main concepts of sleep deprivation. The key ideas in this paper would be the research done and how many hours a person is supposed to sleep, some disorders and what loss of sleep will do to a person.
Sleeping is something that is an essential part of human nature and is a must in order for one to be a functional human being. Sleep is an idea that is accompanied by many wives’ tales, including the ideas that one needs seven to eight hours of sleep each night and alcohol helps one fall asleep and sleep more soundly. One myth about sleep is that during sleeping, one is in a state of nothingness. In truth, however, it has been discovered that during sleep the brain is active, variations in heartbeat and breathing occur, and the eyes and ears are active throughout the time of sleep. These activities during a person’s sleep are important because they help that person be more aware, awake, and alert during consciousness. If all of these important activities occur during sleep, why is it that people are so willing to short themselves of this vital activity? Although much about sleep still remains a mystery, research and experiments continue to show how important sleep is to each and every person. Throughout this paper, I will discuss sleep and the effects that it has on performance and health, especially in college students. A college student’s sleeping pattern is a reliable indicator to their level of performance in the classroom and other school-affiliated activities, as a lack of sleep leads to decreased performance. Sleep is directly related the level of performance and health in an individual; the more rested a person is, the better that person will perform and feel (Dryer, 2006).
Each night, the average person spends approximately 7-9 hours giving their bodies a restful vacation in the land of dreams. Considering this, we spend 1/3 (or 25 years) of our entire lives engaging in this idle activity. Although these numbers can appear as a waste of time in our every day lives, sleeping and/or napping is the energy that helps fuel our bodies to function correctly. Sleep is a necessary function in our every day routine in order to make our brains function at the most efficient level. As we sleep, the brain helps us to recuperate and regain strength by “restoring and repairing the brain tissue” (Myers, 2010, p 99). Without this reviving process, we would all eventually deteriorate. By impairing the sleep deprived mentally and physically, it can potentially cause serious harm. We must fade our conscious mind, and let our mind relax within subconscious state.
In the world of higher education, students at the collegiate level are highly likely to be overwhelmed with course load, in addition to sports and extra-curricular activities (Jacobs & Dodd, 2003). These factors have the potential to lead to various amounts of sleep deprivation, and as the research of Nilsson, Sunderstrom, Karlsson et al. (2004) has shown, sleep deprivation is correlated with higher levels of fatigue, impairments in speed and accuracy as well as limitations in cognitive and physical performances. One way to cope with this fatigue that has shown to have very positive results on people of all ages is taking naps. In addition to reducing sleepiness, Milner & Cote (2008) have determined that “napping may lead to considerable benefits in terms of mood, alertness and cognitive performances”. It is these benefits that nappers seek when engaging in napping activities.
Have you ever stayed up too late? At one time or another most people have probably experienced that feeling where their eyes start to droop and blur. It’s their body telling them they need to sleep… But do they? Many people might think losing a night’s sleep or not sleeping enough is not a big deal, but in fact, continuously lacking sleep does affect people in a bad way. People should know the healthy amount of sleep they need and some solutions to sleeping problems. Sleep deprivation causes physical and mental effects on the human body and can be directly responsible for many fatal accidents.
Important public policy issues have arisen in our modern 24-hour society, where it is crucial to weigh the value of sleep versus wakefulness. Scientific knowledge about sleep is currently insufficient to resolve the political and academic debates raging about how much and when people should sleep. These issues affect almost everybody, from the shift worker to the international traveler, from the physician to the policy maker, from the anthropologist to the student preparing for an exam.
“Twelve Simple Tips to Improve Your Sleep.” (2009, Dec. 18). The Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Healthy
Sleep is a very important factor in the human function. Our body and brain is able to reset itself and rejuvenate while we sleep. When we do not get the required amount of sleep, we start to feel lethargic and foggy minded, because our mind and body wasn’t able to replenish itself. Sleep is imperative that an insignificant rest deficiency or lack of sleep can affect our ability to remember things; decisions and can affect our temperament. Chronic sleep deficiency can get the body to feel agitated and it could lead to serious health problems such as, heart problems, stress, acne, and obesity.