Persuasive Speech About Sleep

Are you tired and having trouble paying attention in class? Focusing on tasks at hand? Or just completely being overall unproductive? The average college student is deprived at least two full hours asleep each night according to “College Tidbits” a website designed to promote healthy lifestyles and productivity in daily college life. These results were pooled from multiple surveys done over hundreds of campuses throughout the United States. Today, I hope to persuade you to fight the statistics and get those extra two hours of sleep. Do what it takes to get the full seven to nine hours that is suggested by the Mayo Clinic. I will discuss two problems. Why college students are not

Sleep is a huge part of our lives. On average, we need anywhere from 7-10 of sleep, depending on age. However, few people, especially students, actually get the amount of sleep they should be receiving every night. You might be wondering, its only a couple of hours, why is this a big deal? Actually, sleep deprivation can have a huge impact on your day. According to the article “The Cure for Brain Fog” by Toni Gerber Hope, “lack of sleep has such a profound effect on our brains, making us forgetful, unable to concentrate, grumpy, accident-prone or clumsy”. Anyone who has lost sleep has felt these symptoms and they occur even slightly if one gets less sleep than necessary. There are many diagnoses for sleep deprivation but I believe that the rising issue is technology.

Thesis/Central Idea: Sleep deprivation can lead to serious health problems, forgetting important information, and will have a negative impact on the outlook of life.

Title of Speech: The Importance of Sleep and the Effects It Can Have on Our Bodies

Studies have shown that an hour more of sleep gave the students a 2.32 percent difference in test scores. That may not sound like much but in though that can bring a B+ to an A. “A recent poll conducted by the National sleep foundation found that 60% of children under the age of 18 complained of being tired during the day, according to their parents, and 15% said they can’t focus as well with less sleep,” said sleepfoundation.org. Students can’t focus with less sleep because their brain isn’t fully awake to let them pay attention in class. If students are not getting the sleep they need then they can ruin their chance at a high paying college or career.

Most people joke around about how important sleep is and they say things like: “If I don’t sleep right now I might die!”. But many people don’t know how true that statement can be or how important sleep really is. The amount of sleep you get is important and how much sleep you need varies depending on your age. Even naps can help people that have unusual sleeping schedules. Sleeping and napping give you the energy you need to go through the day, but over sleeping or napping can make you even more tired than you were before. Sleeping and napping is a very important thing you need to do to be healthy, to have enough energy to go through the day, and help you be more focused throughout the day.

Research shows that sleep is a necessity for everyone, especially teenagers. When starting school a little later, students can get at least 2-3 hours of extra sleep. With a 7 hour day at school, a couple of hours of homework, studying, and after school activities, there is not much time for sleep. With the extra sleep, when students get to school, they would be focused and ready to learn! “A common belief is that adolescents are tired, irritable and uncooperative because they choose to stay up too late or are difficult to wake in the morning because they are lazy, a study noted. Educators tend to think that adolescents learn best in the morning and if they simply went to sleep earlier, it would improve their concentration” (Schaffhauser 2). For all of these reasons, it is very important for teens should sleep.

It is not healthy to not get enough sleep; it can cause problems in health. Sleep disorders and chronic sleep loss can put humans at risk for heart disease, heart attack, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, stokes (Hotline Information). The heart circulates the blood to the whole body and to the brain. Studying for an exam longer and going to sleep later is effective more than studying for a shorter amount of time and going to sleep earlier. The brain will process more

There is a certain irony with procrastination, things we put off doing accumulate to the point of in manageability and feelings of anxiety increase which, is why we procrastinate anyway.

The average human spends about 25 years of their life sleeping. That is equal to one-third of a person’s life. So if sleep is vital and common among every single human, what do you know about it? What happens when we sleep (Attention Grabber)? Before the 1950s, scientists believed that the brain would just “shut off” when we would go to sleep. It wasn’t until the discovery of the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) state that scientists really looked into what happens in the brain while we are asleep. Studies have found that we go through a cycle of stages during sleep, and it is important for our health (Orientation to Topic). Today, I am going to inform you about what really happens when we sleep, and some issues that are found among it (Specific Purpose). In order to really understand this worldwide commonality, you need to know some background on sleep, the stages in the cycle, and some common disorders (Central Idea). I have taken a year long psychology course that went into depth on sleep psychology, and I have done extensive research on the topic to better grasp it (Statement of Credibility). I want to inform you on sleep so you can understand what happens when you close your eyes every night, and so you can detect any irregularities in your sleep pattern (Statement of Goodwill). First, I will give a background of why and how we know to sleep, then I will explain the stages in the sleep cycle, and finally I will tell you about some common disorders (Preview).

It is estimated that only 15 percent actually get these amounts (Kids Suffer from Sleep Deprivation). This is particularly important for students who wish to do well in school. Dr. Carl Hunt, the director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, is spearheading a sleep campaign. Her philosophy is, “Sleep well, do well.” This is something that shouldn’t be taken to lightly. Sleep problems effect about 70 million Americans of all ages. Teens often have problems with daytime sleepiness. The old idea of early to bed, early to rise isn’t necessarily the best answer. Society is simply asking to much of teens (Sleep experts to teens). A combination of school, work, study and leisure, leaves very little time left for sleep. Being deprived of sleep definitely has an effect on how well students do in school and may be putting their health at risk. College students who stay up all night to study for a test or write a big paper that’s due often have no choice because of the pressures to do well and succeed, but at what price do they pay?

Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience will understand what insomnia is, what

Specific Purpose: To inform the audience about the long term effects of lack of sleep

Sleep is one of the things that most students can say they do not get enough of. It is a time for us to rest and for a few blissful hours hopefully forget about the stress and worries of school and life. Unfortunately, due to too much work or too much studying to do, often enough, we do not get the amount we need each night to be fully rested the next day. But we have learned to cope with the sleep deprivation by drinking coffee in the morning to wake us up. Even though we are awake, how well can we function throughout the day when we have only had less than five hours of sleep? How much does our behavior change without enough sleep?

Upon reading the article on Stress Management, I realized that procrastination can definitely cause stress in my life, unwanted and unnecessary stress.For years I have been in a fight with procrastination. I am ashamed to say that I have identified this issue a long time ago and have done nothing to get rid of it. I am even more ashamed to say that about 90% of time procrastination wins. Whether it be a simple wash the bathroom now or no more movies, not to mention take out the garbage now, I allow procrastination to win. I will always say, I can do it later or I have time. This is a negative factor that affects Time and Stress Management.