Sleep

Today the stressy topic, I with honour will discuss something about sleeping. Sleep has always been a dark and mysterious part of our nature. All humans and animals need to sleep. God doesn't sleep, so do UFO? Why does a person gets tired and need a rest anyway? Same goes to animals. How much do we need for a normal sleep? What happens if we sleep too overly or too little?


The optimal amount of sleep for the average adult is 7 hours. A person will be having sleep deprivation if he sleep less than 7hours to 5hours. Adequate sleep is crucial to brain functioning. There will be no less so than air, water, and food. With an optimal hour sleep, he/she will probably feel refreshed and full of energy after awake. A person whom have enough sleeping hours can actually enhance on his or her learning and memory. Learning and memory can be described in three functions namely Acquisition, Consolidation and Recall. Acquistion refers to the introduction of new information into the brain. Consolidation represents the processes by which a memory becomes stable. Recall refers to the ability to access the information (whether consciously or unconsciously) after it has been stored.


Without adequate sleep and rest, memory and learning(concentration) on that particular person will be weaker. Overworked neurons can no longer function to coordinate information properly. Example, during exam period, student tends to stay up late for study, but the student will find it hard to gain access to his or her brain. I did tried it, it's just like the informations entered my right ear and out from my left ear.


Too much or few hours of sleep will not balance the air, water or food to the person. Lack of them will be taken in if the person spent too much on his sleeping hours. Take the example of me, I used to sleep 10 or 11 hours a day. Or even 12 hours. Once i woke up it's already noon. That means I missed my breakfast and straight to lunch. Or is it called brunch? With the imbalance taking of food and water, I might be having malnutrition. Weight lose might occurs? And so, it goes to health problems. In my opinion, a person who slept too much wouldn't feel refreshed but fatigue. It feels like no energy to do something so do memory and concentration.


Sleep deprivation can have serious effects on your health in the form of physical and mental impairments. Inadequate rest weakens our ability to think, to handle stress, to maintain healthy immune system, and to moderate our emotions. Insufficient rest can also cause people to have hallucinations. Many examples can be shown within dramas or movies. Just like when you have not eaten any food for one or two days, you start hallucinating there're hamburgers in front of you or any pizzas around. It's the same as you are over tiring, you found a bed in front of you to sleep. Other typical effects of sleep deprivation include:

• depression
• heart disease
• hypertension
• irritability
• slower reaction times
• slurred speech
• tremors

For people who suffer from sleep deprivation are normally elderly age group. In fact, over 50 per cent of people over 64 years old suffer from sleep disorder.

Another problem with sleep deprivation is weight changes. Weight gain will occur. Because the amount and quality of sleep we get will affect our hormones, namely our levels of leptin and grehlin. Leptin and Grehlin are hormones that help the body control appetite and weight gain and loss. During sleep deprivation, level of grehlin increases, causes a greater appetite, and levels of leptin decreases. Making the person to feel hungrier.

At the American Diabetes Association's annual meeting in June 2001, Eve Van Cauter, Ph.D., reported that people who regularly do not get enough sleep can become less sensitive to insulin. This increases their risk for diabetes and high blood pressure – both serious threats to the brain.

Stress can affect proper sleep. For example, with A'level examinations, working or money problem that increase our stress level. Can we include relationship problems that causes people to have sleep disorder? With all these stress, that person might have the possibility to suffer from insomnia. Insomnia refers to the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep.

At Tel Aviv University, Dr. Avi Sadeh conducted a study of students. He found that those "who tended to focus on their emotions and anxiety during the high-stress period were more likely to shorten their sleep, while those who tended to ignore emotions and focus on tasks extended their sleep and shut themselves off from stress."

So people, do my readers suffer from sleep deprivation? I think many of you might be having too much on sleeping time? Sleeping too much has its problems as well. For example, it will mess up your sleeping schedule. Research shows that people who sleep at least 9hours a night will double the risk to develop parkinson's disease than those sleeping 6hours or less. Sleep deprivation can lead to increased accidents, worsening health and lower test scores.