Causes of Sleep Deprivation in Western Cultures

Despite the fact that deprivation of sleep has negative impacts, individuals still continue to deprive themselves of sleep. Many claim that they can just make it up tomorrow night and sleep the extra two hours they did not get. However, this is only adding more and more to a sleep debt. This debt will continue to grow and grow until it is paid off. William Dement and Christopher Vaughan strongly advocate that people should know the warnings, importance, and consequences that come with sleep deprivation, and therefore, lead to sleep

Executive functions, sometimes also called higher-order functions of the brain refer to working memory, response selection, and inhibition. Insufficient sleep has a detrimental impact on these functions, “tasks that rely on executive processes have been reported to be particularly disrupted by sleep deprivation and this has led to the notion that Executive Functions are particularly sensitive to sleep loss” (Lo, Groeger, Santhi, Arbon, Lazar, Hasan, and Dijk 2). Cognitive performance is undoubtedly a key component for both short-term successes i.e. remembering to pick up the kids from school to accurately meeting the boss’s daily

The brain has to perform calculations on a day to day basis, and not giving it rest causes to accumulate stress. Besides processing calculations in order to carry out daily tasks, the brain also perceives enormous amounts of information, and needs down time to organize all the information. Usually the consolidating of all the information takes place when a person is sleeping, therefore depriving the brain of sleep will cause incognizant brain function and leave one groggy throughout the next day (Sample, 1). Distinct implications of decrease in brain function is displayed when a person experiences drowsiness throughout the day, which causes truncated memory retention rates and loss of

Two important sleep restriction studies that also included a short in-laboratory recovery phase were those by Dinges and colleagues11 and Belenky and colleagues.4 In the former study, sleep was restricted 33% below habitual sleep duration (average 4.98, SD 0.57 per night) for seven consecutive nights, after which participants were allowed one or two 10 hour recovery sleeps.11 In the latter, participants were permitted either 3, 5, 7 or 9 hours in bed each night, for seven nights, followed by three 8 hour recovery opportunities.4 These studies show that either two 10 hour or three 8 hour sleep opportunities were sufficient to recover performance to baseline levels. Although, participants felt that their functioning was restored with subjective reports of sleepiness and performance recovering to baseline; indicating that subjective measures do not appear to accurately parallel objective measures of neurobehavioural recovery. These findings suggest that more than 2 or 3 nights of extended sleep may be needed to return neurobehavioral functions to baseline levels. This may be especially important in situations where individuals are not able to choose or extend the length of their recovery sleep

Frenda, Patihis, Loftus, Lewis and Fenn’s (2014) article titled “Sleep Deprivation and False Memories sought out to explanation how sleep deprivation can have a role in an individual’s cognitive function. One-way researchers went about unraveling this particular question was to uncover the invisible knowledge relating the formation of false memories with sleep deprivation. Two experiments were executed diving into the many ways that sleep deprivation can affect a person’s thoughts and general decisions, using many examples.

Have you ever been told to “sleep on it” when confronted with a serious decision? The study done by Seeley, C. J., Beninger, R. J., & Smith, C. T. titled “Post Learning Sleep Improves Cognitive-Emotional Decision-Making: Evidence for a ‘Deck B Sleep Effect’ in the Iowa Gambling Task” sets out to answer if sleeping helps improve decision making. For this study, they used the “Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)” on participants. After the IGT, participants had 12 hours of being awake, 12 hours of sleep, or 12 hours of sleep followed by 12 hours of being awake before taking the IGT again. This experiment is important because it would show if we make better decisions after sleeping on it. For important decisions, such as laws, business decisions, and even jury decisions, we want the best results, and sleeping on these decisions may provide better results. The main questions the researchers tried to answer were when starting out do people choose the deck with a more constant chance of winning, when learning more about the game do people change their choices, and does sleeping after the first session improve the participant’s performance in the next session. Their hypothesis, based on their previous experiments, was that initially more participants would choose from decks B and D, but after they learn more about the game they will start to choose more cards from decks C and D. They also hypothesized that sleeping after learning about the game would improve their results for the next

Sleep is one of the unavoidable daily-living activities and it is one of the most important factors contributing to a person’s health. A quality sleep is essential for the physical, cognitive and psychological well-being of a person. Learning, memory processing and maintenance of the brain are among the most important functions of sleep. In addition to maintaining the brain, sleep has important roles in controlling the

For some, sleep may seem like wasted hours of doing nothing, and for others, it’s a reward for when all our important work is finally complete. However, the value of getting a good night’s sleep is often misunderstood as it’s a critical moment in which our body balances and regulates our vital systems. Instead of cramming to until 4 in the morning to study and forcing yourself to stay away with an extra cup of coffee, it’s best to close your eyes and get some sleep as it allows your body to regenerate itself. Many are unaware of how crucial sleep is to your brain as it affects everything from your respiratory system to your ability to recall information. Marcu explains how sleep restructures your brain in a way that’s necessary for how our

Unending and intense lack of sleep will adversely effect learning and considering. There is a misfortune consideration and readiness includes a progression of breaches, or eased back reactions prompting waking-state insecurity in a few psychological procedures, for example, working memory. Rest misfortune seems to influence a few parts of comprehension more than others. Case in point, inventive and creative mental handling have all the earmarks of being a great deal all the more contrarily disabled when contrasted with choice making and arranging undertakings other subjective aptitudes depressingly impeded from intense rest misfortune, for example, response time, memory assignments, visual motor errands and thinking abilities.

“Unexpected Ways Sleep Deprivation Makes Life Tougher” written by Andrea Peterson, the writer for the Wall Street Journal, explained how not having enough sleep can affect your body and your performance. What one does not obtain the correct amount of sleep it can cause short term and long term effects such as long term memory, short term memory, recall and performance in daily life. Sleep deprivation is a problem that is often overlooked in today’s society. This purpose of this article is to inform our society about the side effects of sleep deprivation in hope of influencing one to change their sleeping patterns. If you do not get the appropriate amount of sleep your daily life will become just that much more difficult.

Sleep is essential to life, as it can affect how we look, feel and perform on a daily basis. Sleep deprivation can have a major impact on our overall quality of life. On average, we spend a third of our life asleep. Sleep regenerates our brains and bodies, and without it we cannot function effectively. During sleep the body undergoes several physiological and psychological processes; processing information, learning and consolidating memories. New knowledge about the importance of sleep, the health consequences of chronic sleep deprivation, and sleep disorders has suffered in recent years. Chronic sleep loss and untreated sleep disorders have a profound and diverse impact on health, behavior, and quality of life (Robotham, 2011).

It is recommended that as adults we should be aiming to achieve 8 hours of sleep per night. It is important to reach the optimal sleep level each night because lack of sleep over time can lead to an increase in health problems (National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2012). Sleep deprivation can lead to not only physical health problems, but behavioral problems as well (Meldrum & Restivo, 2014). Studies have shown that sleep deficiency is correlated to problems with emotion regulation, difficulties making decisions and problem solving skills (NIH). Obtaining the optimal level of sleep can increase learning abilities, creative thinking, and attention (NIH). Greater potential for success is made possible by ensuring the necessary amount of sleep

Many people don’t understand how important sleep is. “One aspect of brain health that has been well examined through neuroimaging and cognitive testing is the influence of sleep on the brain. The findings are indeed a wake up call with regard to the impact on focus memory, test performance, mood, and high risk behaviors.”(Willis 1). Throughout

The goal of this study was to investigate the role of sleep in the regulation of emotional reactivity and mood, and in particular the role of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The research team led by Rosales-Lagarde measured the impact of total sleep deprivation (TSD) by evaluating subjective responses to frustration and aversive stimuli. It was found that coping skills and emotional regulatory abilities were decreased along with decision-making skills following REM sleep disturbances. It was also found that the subjects that experienced disturbances in REM sleep displayed a greater degree of impulsiveness when faced with a risky decision and favored utilitarian judgments. The data was collected using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) imaging of the brain during the various stages of the experiment, and during the administration of the Emotional Reactivity Task. It was found that there is a greater and longer lasting activation of the amygdala while viewing negative stimuli, and specifically following TSD. This study was based on previous research that suggests that REM sleep plays a significant role in emotional regulation, as brain areas associated with emotion are specifically activated during REM sleep cycles. These include the amygdaloid complex, medial and orbital frontal cortices, and posterior association areas.

Sleep is one of the key essentials for cognitive performance, yet it is accounted that most people do not receive a sufficient amount. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2016 that on average, 50-70 million Americans do not receive the proper amount of sleep per night. This concept is more commonly referred to as sleep deprivation. By definition, sleep deprivation is simply not getting enough or the lack of sleep. As the number of hours that a person is awake increase, their cognitive and attentional deficits become more evident. Prospective memory is remembering to do something that you previously planned to do. This form of memory is often aided by cues in the environment and requires cognitive and attentional capacities. Sleep or the lack thereof can impact numerous processes such as memory, attention, and executive functioning. The main objective of this present study is to examine the effects of sleep deprivation on the attentional networks and cognitive functioning required for prospective memory. The results of this study will provide in depth insight on the importance of an adequate amount of sleep for the successful performance of various cognitive tasks and propose further research.