Evidence Suggesting Three Plausible Functions Of Sleep

Sleep is important for our health and well-being. Extensive research has been done on the effects of sleep. These studies consistently show that sleep plays a vital role in promoting physical health, longevity, and emotional well-being. This explains why, after a good night's sleep, we feel better, our thoughts are clearer, and our emotions are less fragile. Without adequate sleep our judgment, mood, and ability to learn and retain information are weakened.

“Why do we sleep?” is a very popular questions that many humans ask today. Sleep is very sufficient to the human body. If it was not important, then God would not have designed for a third of our life to be occupied by sleep. During this time period, many people are interested to know what is a good amount of sleep and what are the harmful effects to not getting enough sleep.

Sleep is a beautiful thing, but people do not get enough of it. It is a time for the body to rejuvenate and process the events of the day. Sleeping is something that we seek out. Getting the recommended amount of sleep allows our body to function properly the next day. Without it, there could be detrimental consequences. The National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke says that without sleep, neurons could be “polluted with byproducts”. In severe cases, people who get very little sleep often experience mood swings, hallucinations and cells do not continue to reproduce.

This article explains the importance of getting the perfect amount of sleep at night. The idea that sleeping for less than five hours or more than nine hours proves to have a negative effect on the human body. Sleep deprivation has a closely related link to memory retention and can cause a person to have trouble with daily task. The author continues to explain that not only is the brain effected by too little or too much sleep, but the rest of the body is also effected. Conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and even depression have links to not getting the perfect amount of sleep. The article concludes with listing tips to get the ideal amount of sleep at night, such as, going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day and limiting the amount of caffeine that is consumed throughout the day.

Sleep is undoubtedly one of the most essential requirements for the human body to function properly. It plays a very important role in ensuring the wellness of the human body both physically as well as mentally. In fact, the importance of sleep is clear from the fact that it helps you in maintaining a good lifestyle throughout our entire lifetime. Not only does it help maintain our physical and mental health; rather it also helps in maintaining a decent and healthy lifestyle along with ensuring safety from a number of fatal diseases. It is usually said that the mood in which you wake up is largely dependent on the type of sleep you have been in. This in itself is a big proof of the importance of sleep in our lives. While sleeping, our body finally gets its share of rest and it also gets ample time in rejuvenating from all the wear and tear that it went through during the entire day. Not only this, the body is in its own working condition when we are sleeping as this is the time when it supports the healthy functioning of the brain as well as physical attributes of our body.

Research indicates that America’s sleep problems have increased and might be the number one health problem. The average amount of sleep that people get per night can range anywhere from three to twelve hours. According to Dr. David Dinges at the University of Pennsylvania, it is a fact that people who get fewer than six hours of sleep a night do not live as long as people who get seven hours or more. Most people do not realize the importance of sleep or even realize that it is needed to survive. Many people experience sleep deprivation; however it is commonly seen in college students. Irregular sleeping patterns tend to occur in students, which can later lead to long-term effects.

As an individual sleeps, his body is able to repair itself, remove toxins, and consolidate memories. It is no surprise that the Dalai Lama has once stated that, “Sleep is the best meditation”. Even though the importance of sleep is highly proclaimed, sleep deprivation, especially in young adults, is significantly prevalent. Doctors recommend the sufficient amount time adolescents should spend sleeping every night is eight hours. However, due to a committed schedule, many young adults find themselves in a predicament that powers their improper sleep habits. The contradictory perspective on the value of sleep, assert that the time spent sleeping can be used to performing tasks that are more productive. But a multitude of studies continue to indicate

If physiologists devoted the most research time to behaviors humans engaged in the most, we would probably have a full understanding of the biological purpose of sleep. After all, humans, with the exception of most college students, spend one third of their lives in a somnolent state. Despite its fundamental role in human and animal life, sleep is, even in an age when neuroscience has reduced many behaviors to neurological mechanisms, still quite mysterious. What processes are taking place during sleep that benefit the organism? Why spend so much time in an unresponsive and vulnerable state? That these questions haven't been definitively answered is really not a function of a lack of effort on

What do the effects of sleep deprivation have on people? When a person does not get enough sleep, he or she is depriving his or her body of something that it needs. A delightful sleep is one of the most satisfying human experiences with a role to play in supporting a good mood and cognitive acuity as well as in promoting physiologic balance and resilience (Chittora, Jain and Suhalka). People think because they get an insufficient number of hours of sleep, they will not have an emotional impact by it. Sleep is a required need for peoples’ day to day life to be able to perform and stay healthy emotionally and physically. The effects of sleep deprivation are an issue because it affects mood, performance, and health.

Several people in the modern day suffer from lack of sleep on a day-to-day basis. Every night, a person is supposed to obtain at least eight hours or more in order to function efficiently throughout the day; retrieved from https://sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need. Unfortunately, many individuals do not get the right amount of hours of sleep for various reasons. Whether it is a college students losing sleep over finals or a hardworking woman or man working late shifts or overtime with limited amount of hours put aside to rest. Conducting in these behaviors can result in dysfunction; which leaves a negative effect on their body. Negative effects include, a lack in cognitive performances, emotional behavior as well as irrational reasoning. (Waterhouse, J., Alkib, L., Edwards, B., & Reilly, T. (2008). Research studies have shown that when it comes to performing tasks such as, giving a reaction to an unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral picture, sleep deprived subjects perceived the neutral picture negatively and showed negative moods along with, a decrease in alertness. (Tempesta, D., Couyoumdjian, A., Curcio, G., Moroni, F., Marzano, C., De Gennaro, L., & Ferrara, M. (2010). The proposed research will examine whether sleep deprivation result in increased aggressive behavior and poorer task performance? Based on the research conducted so far receiving eight hours is a necessity, it improves cognitive tasks, problem solving, and decision-making.

The human body and mind require a regulated sleep and wake pattern in order to naturally restore homeostasis and provide healthier functioning in regards to it’s physical, emotional, cognitive, and somatic response to it’s environment. Chronic disruptions in this sleep pattern have been found to affect 10% to 18% of the general American population, while it has been found to affect 50%-80% of the American psychiatric population. The most common mental illnesses that suffer from chronic sleep/wake disruptions include mood disorders such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), PTSD, and schizophrenia. Research on the regulation of the sleep/wake cycle has found that proper regulation promotes healthy physical, emotional, and mental resilience, while chronic dysregulation promotes negative thinking as well as physical and emotional vulnerability (Nathan, 2015). Although lack of sleep is often viewed as just a symptom of mental illness, research in this area suggests that chronic sleep difficulties may have a larger role in the contribution to the development, progression, and outcomes of mental illness. Further investigation in this area can allow us to better understand this role of the sleep/wake cycle and therefore develop more sophisticated clinical measures, interventions, and prevention strategies.

Sleep can be disturbed in a variety of different ways and problems with sleep are a major health concern. In fact, the issue is considered to be such an important one that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) established National Sleep Week to promote awareness of disordered sleeping and promote educational of sleep hygiene practices (CDC, 2011). Disordered sleep may be classified on the basis of quality, timing, or duration (APA, 2013). Most of the research focused on disordered sleep has focused on aspects of insufficient sleep; that

According to the Sleepless in America (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2014), the documentary which co-produced by the National Geographic Channel, almost forty percent of Americans get less than five hours of sleep per night. Sleep deprivation often results in depression-like symptoms. Thus we heard suggestions that we should have at least eight hours of sleep a night. In fact, the duration of sleep affected by multiple factors, such as human has different sleep needs at the different age, and according to the Openstax (2014), by the time we are 65 years old, we average fewer than seven hours of sleep per day. For instance, I going to prove that people have less than seven hours of sleep are less healthy, and I will use some current scientific data to support the claim that six to seven to eight hours are sufficient for the most population.

Deprivation of sleep has been linked to a variety of health issues from type II diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases, to mental health issues such as depression (Porkka-Heiskanen, Zitting & Wigren, 2013). The busy lifestyles of Western culture in the 21st century have increasingly deprived individuals of sleep. This could potentially be a contributing reason that there has been an increase of obesity in cultures such as that of the United States. But what makes humans sleep? Why, as a species, do we need to sleep? Beyond that of feeling tired, science has yet to come to a unanimous decision as to the reasons behind the human race needing to sleep. T. Porkka-Heiskanen, K.M. Zitting, and H.K. Wigren reviewed various research studies and compiled a report of some of the various theories as to why humans need sleep and the potential effects of lack of sleep on the human body, both physically and psychologically.

Sleep is very important for proper human functioning. Sleep deprivation occurs the body does not get an adequate amount of sleep regularly. The lack of sleep can affect many aspects of life. This topic affects many Americans especially college students. American culture values being very busy and cramming in many activities to daily schedules in which often requires sacrificing sleep. Different age groups reactions to sleep deprivation was investigated. Physical effects of lack of sleep were examined by looking at the change in the level of alertness and ability to notice details. The effects of sleep deprivation on stress regulation, and emotional response were also tested.