The Severity of Sleep Deprivation Essay

Sleep deprivation is prevalent in industrialized societies and has been linked to serious health issues and traffic accidents. This essay views sleep and sleep deprivation from five different motivational perspectives in order to gain a holistic understanding of the phenomena. From evolutionary, psychodynamic, behaviourist, cognitive, and hierarchy of needs perspectives, it is inferred that the cognitive and behaviourist perspectives uphold the most merit for gaining understanding into sleep and sleep deprivation. However, it is

Sleep deprivation is a serious concern among college students, who are "among the most sleep-deprived age group in the United States," (Central Michigan University, 2008). It is important to study the causes of sleep deprivation, or sleep disorders, among college students. According to Park (2009), "dozens of studies have linked an increase in nightly sleep to better cognition and alertness." A study by Central Michigan University (2008) found that sleep deprivation can lead to poor academic performance, impaired driving, depression, and behavioral problems. There are several variables that may affect sleeping patterns among college students. One is genetics or biological issues. It is highly

In today’s society, many people go through many days yawning, fighting to stay awake and indulging in many cups of coffee. If you were to ask them what the cause of their restlessness was, the popular statement would be a lack of sleep. However, most would not dare to think that a lack of sleep could cause multiple issues in everyday life. This problem has been seen to peak during the good ole college days. It is hard to imagine that those days of all-night cramming sessions and those late nights partying causing students to be sleep deprived could lead to a variety of problems like stress, long term insomnia, and a weakened immune system.

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 reason humans need sleep is not fully understood, but it is seen to have extremely important functions and can cause serious effects if individuals do not get enough sleep. Sleep disorders have been seen to cause serious side affects on individuals, especially those who work twelve-hour shifts or shiftwork. The purpose of the paper is to explore sleep disorders and possible treatments.

Sleep deprivation could be caused by several elements; such as stresses of daily life, choosing to work or play over sleeping, or a medical condition prohibiting sleep (Breus). Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as one and a half hours for just one night could result in a loss of alertness during daytime hours by 32% (Breus). “ In the long term, the clinical consequences of untreated disorders are large indeed. They are associated with numerous, serious medical ilnessess, including: high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, obesity, ADD, and poor quality of life.” (Breus). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates conservatively that, “each year drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,100 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities.” (Breus). Also, excessive lack of sleep contributes to a greater risk of sustaining an occupational injury, which makes

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

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.

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.

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.

The article I chose discusses the topic of sleep deprivation. The article Sleep deprivation affects multiple distinct cognitive processes discusses the how sleep deprivation affects a person’s cognitive levels. In this article, the types of tests that were conducted to test the how losing sleep affects the daily operations. It breaks down the levels of testing methods and how many participants were chosen. “In this present study, the effects of sleep deprivation were measured on a two-choice numerosity discrimination task” (Ratcliff, R., 2009). With any study, experts used their testing to get results to either reject or not reject the null hypothesis.

Sleep deprivation is the most widely recognized rest issue in America and College Students. Understudies dropout rate and instructional level is dropping in the fact that they don't get much rest. Rest is vital to our wellbeing, yet its influencing understudy's wellbeing the most. Being a college student we don’t have our personal alarm clock anymore, so we tend to oversleep or don’t sleep at all. I can affirm on the grounds that being all alone I have this same issue. I hear and see the influence it has on understudies day by day and at times battle with it myself. Sleep Deprivation is created by society's weights to succeed, which prompts numerous ailments and reductions in scholarly accomplishment in undergrads.

Since, technology has become more about of society there has been a trend in people who are not getting a full night’s rest. According to the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, “at least 40 million Americans suffer from chronic, long-term sleep disorders” (Sleep Disorders and Sleeping Problems”). There are several causes for the increase in lack of sleep or sleep deprivation; which include, using electronics late at night, using your bed for more than just sleeping, and anxiety.

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?

Most people have at least stayed awake for the entire night once during their lifetime. This behavior is common amongst individuals enrolled in High School or pursuing University degree. One might wonder how lack of sleep for the night impact him/her. However, it has being proven that being awake for 24 hours has unpleasant effects on health.So why is sleep so important? How does lack of sleep impact one’s mood so significantly, causing people to be ‘grumpy’, isn 't sleep just people lying down in their bed and closing their eyes.sleep is a complex process, it is a natural process where body relaxes and repairs itself. Sleep takes places in 3 stages, 1-2 stage ,2-3 stage and REM (Rapid Eye Movement ) stage. Our body is like a battery, sleeping helps replenishes that energy, if one does not store enough energy for the next day the body will struggle to carry out simple tasks which can Aultimately lead to exhaustion. Sleep is the time when the human body gets a chance to rest. Personally suffering from sleep deprivation it has caused a lot of problems in my own life such as flying safely, concentrating on school work and working efficiently.