Sleep Deprivation In America

Sleep deprivation can have serious consequences, it can affect not only your physical health but your metal health as well. Some implications of a largely sleep deprived society would be poor work performance, bad moods, and anger or depression. According to the webmd article “The Toll of Sleep Loss in America” it states that “Today, about 20% of Americans report that they get less than 6 hours of sleep on average.” (Davis, 2006). The human body should be getting at least 8 hours of sleep at night on average. Sleep Deprivation can also cause driving accidents because people are out on the road while tired.

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.

There you have it. Just by getting more sleep, you can change your health and life drastically. If Americans could just try to get some more sleep every night, they could lose weight, and even get out of depression. Sleep is a very vital part of your psychological health, and many people do not get enough. If people could make a point to set aside at least 8 hours of sleep, then they would feel so much better.

Morgan Manella in the article “Study: A Third of U.S. Adults Don’t Get Enough Sleep” argues that sleep deprivation can have a negative effect in someone’s health. Manella supports her argument by presenting statistics that shows how adults that don’t enough sleep have chronic conditions. The author’s purpose is to raise awareness so that people will sleep more often and have a better health condition.

One of the many arising problems of America’s students is they are becoming sleep deprived. The busy daily schedules of children and teens are not allowing them to get enough sleep. “Less sleep is unhealthy especially with the new research that as teenagers move through teenage years, they need increasing amounts of sleep. Nine hours per night is the necessary amount to avoid behaviors associated with sleep deprivation” (Final Report Summary, 2001). Among other things, sleep deprivation is causing students to sleep during class instead of being awake and aware. When the students are sleeping in class, they are not retaining information being taught to them. Researchers have now proven that

Everyone needs sleep and it will make a day go smoothly or completely ruin someone’s rest of the day. Every human, animal, and most insects require a sufficient amount of sleep to function normally thought-out their day and night. On average humans need about seven to ten hours of sleep, as a normal requirement for the brain to recover conventionally. However, 40-50 percent of Americans do not get enough sleep every night (Information on Insomnia, n.d.). Lack of time or stressful living schedule may hinder there sleeping time. Others may have a disorder that causes them to have horrible sleep experiences and not being able to sleep.

Sleep deprivation has become a wide spread issue in the United States. This spans from kids as young as 10 as far up as adults in their 40s and 50s. This causes these people to either be not at the top of their game, which can hinder their performance, and it can also make them start to get addicted to caffeinated beverages such as coffee and energy drinks. This issue could be solved with one thing, napping.

Success in life is typically measured by the result of what is accomplished during the waking hours. The degree of effectiveness of those hours however, depend on effective rest. “Sleep is integral to the health and well-being of all people” (Wells 233). Sleep is simply defined as the body’s rest cycle – a time to recharge. The widely accepted metric for normal or sufficient sleep is about 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. When this metric is not met, either through total sleep loss or accumulated sleep debt, the effect can be dire, “Sleep deprivation results in poor memorizing, schematic thinking, which yields wrong decisions, and emotional disturbances such as deteriorated interpersonal responses and increased aggressiveness” (Orzeł-Gryglewska 95). Sleep deprivation hinders the abilities of the mind, harms the body, and shortens length of life.

The TED Talk video that I watched was Why do we sleep by Russel Foster. This TED talk was about why we need sleep and how getting less than the suggested amount affects the brain. There are three main reasons why we need sleep; restoration, energy conservation, and brain function. Only certain genes are turned on when you sleep so you need to sleep in order for those genes to turn on and allow you other genes to be restored, while sleeping you save about 110 calories, sleep helps enhance creativity, and your brain is less likely to retain information if you’re sleep deprived and trying to cram information. On average a teen needs 9 hours of sleep, in the 1950s the average teen was getting 8 hours of sleep, today on average teens are getting 5 hours of sleep, which is half the amount that we need. If you’re not receiving the amount of sleep that you need your body will uncountable got into micro-sleeping which will happen to at least 31% of drivers in their lifetime.

In most of America’s schools, they are started early in the morning. There are multiple reasons as to why they should not. First of all, a teenager is not fully awake and does not get everything out of their first class, especially if it starts before 8AM. Even according to a National Sleep Foundation poll, 28% of students fall asleep during their first classes.

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.

We spend one third of our lives doing it, and yet, some of us never seem to be able to get enough. People all over the world don’t receive enough sleep whether it’s from a medical condition like narcolepsy, or simply not having enough time in a day. The effects of getting a good night’s rest are essential and signs of sleep depravation are not as hard to spot as one may think.

There have been reports which have said sleep deprivation not only increases sleepiness but it also accelerates deterioration of mood (Kaida and Niki). Sleep and mood are closely connected; poor or inadequate sleep can be the source of irritability and anxiety, while healthy sleep can enhance well-being (Sleep and Mood). Therefore, sleep is crucial to have a pleasant mood and outlook on life on a daily basis. The typical adult requires about seven to eight hours of sleep for each night to have good well-being. University of Pennsylvania researchers found that subjects who were restricted to only four and a half hours of sleep a night for one week reported feeling more stressed, angry, sad, and mentally exhausted (Sleep and Mood). Furthermore, college students who

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the factors contributing to sleep deprivation and the effects of insufficient sleep.

The number of hours of sleep each person needs depends on many factors, including age. Infants need nearly 16 hours a day, while teenagers require about 8-9 hours on average. For most adults, 7 to 8 hours a night appears to be the best amount of sleep. Women in the first three months of pregnancy often need several more hours of sleep than usual. The quantity of rest a person needs also improves if he or she has been deprived of sleep in previous days. Getting too little sleep creates a "sleep debt," which is much like being overdrawn at a bank. Many studies make it clear that sleep deprivation is dangerous. Sleep-deprived people who are tested by using a driving simulator or by performing a hand-eye coordination task perform as badly as or worse than those who are intoxicated. Sleep deprivation also magnifies alcohol's effects on the body, so a fatigued person who drinks will become much more impaired than someone who is well-rested.