Sleep Debt

Sleep debt

In students' life, it is common to stay awake all night to study or to write a paper. Students themselves consider this as pressed by competing schedules. Actually, students who have to spend their time cramming for an exam are a result of Boomerang. They spend their time which supposed to study by playing computer games, dazing, or just browsing the internet. They mistakenly believe that by ignoring the need to sleep could eventually make up the time they have wasted previously, as result; they could do well on the exam next day. It is understandable to think in that way. Because students do make an effort to achieve their goal, which is a higher grade they desire.

After preparing for 24 hours staying awake, students went to the classroom confidently. They believe that their efforts would pay back. However, the result could be unbelievable. There was once a research done by participants from 44 college students. It turns out that sleep-deprived participants performed significantly worse than the no deprived participants on the cognitive task. However, the sleep-deprived participants rated their concentration and effort higher than the nondeprived participants did (June, Amy 512). This was exactly the same as what students who spend their whole night preparing an exam think. They believe they put more effort compared to students who sleep well before the exam day. It indicates that college students are not aware of the extent, to which sleep deprivation negatively affects their ability to complete cognitive tasks.

First of all, we should know the clear concept of sleep. What is sleep and what is sleep for? This is a pretty simple question. My answer could be simply as "to survive". Yes, it is. Paul Martin states that sleep are forms of behavior, just as eating or socializing or fighting or copulating are forms of behavior, even if it is not the most gripping to observe( Paul 463).

Why students don't pay attention to the problem of sleeping? What's worse, they don't even know the importance of sleep. Students believe that it is worthwhile to do something else instead of sleeping, especially studying for an exam. It seems harmless; however, the result could turn out to be badly over time.

According to a poll done by the National sleep Foundation (NSF), it shows that many of the nation's adolescents are falling in class, arriving late to school, felling down and driving drowsy of a lack of sleep that gets worse as they get older.

They result brought by the lack of sleep is obvious. Students always fall asleep in school, fall asleep doing their homework. It is so common in nowadays to see college students' fall asleep during the class, not like lower grade students. Students from college can arrange their time freely; they are not under the watch of their parents. It is found that parents are mostly in the dark about their adolescents' sleep. "While most students know they are not getting the sleep they need, 90% of parents polled believe that their adolescent is getting enough sleep at least a few nights during the school week" (NSF 483).

The harm brought by a lack of sleep is far more than simply fall asleep during the class. Students who get insufficient amounts of sleep are more likely than their peers to get lower grades, while 80% of adolescents who get an optimal amount of sleep say they are achieving As and Bs in school (NSF 483). This is strong evidence shows that students who get sufficient sleep could do better. Let's assume a student who will always prepare the test right before the day, in the short term, he may do well, however, under the influence of lacking sleep for a long term. He may probably be tense, unhappy and nervous. As a result, if he came an exam which is cumulative, It is less likely he would achieve a high grades by staying awake 24 hours.

In general, the knowledge you learned day by day could last longer than what you get from one night. Many students may have a false impression that they can concentrate even 24 hours by preparing for one night. However, this is because students know they don't have any alternatives, the night before the exam is their final choice, they believe that preparing the exam at the cost of sleep is much better have a good sleep before the exam, at least, they tried. And then, no matter what the result is, they have a clear conscience.

Students did not realize the potential risk they could get by doing that. Among the known consequence of insufficient sleep are memory lapses, intentional deficits, depressed mood, and slowed reaction time. People May not familiar with the concept "sleep debt", things I mentioned before are all the result brought by "sleep debt".

As the phrase shows, the debt means something you have to pay back in the future. However, in today's society, many of us do not get enough sleep and we suffer the consequence. As a normal people, nature imposes it upon us. People can survive for a long time even without food. However, when our sleep falls short in quantity or quality we pay a heavy price in depressed mood, impaired performance, damaged social relationships and poorer health (Paul 463).

"Insufficient sleep is directly linked to poor health, with new research suggesting it increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and even premature death. Even a few nights of bad sleep can be detrimental" (Lawrence 471).

That's one of the reasons why it is not worthwhile for students staying late just to study for an exam. Once they get used to this method of studying, the potential risk could be higher and higher. To achieve good grades instead of being ill is stupid.

Sleep debt is something we really need to pay attention to. William and Christopher have done some research on the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident. It is widely believe that the accident was caused by alcohol. However, many evidence in nowadays show that the accident was actually brought by sleep deprivation. It could be totally new information for people. People all understand the dangers of alcohol. However, people always ignore the importance of sleep. Actually, lacking of sleep could even threaten one's life.

The feeling of being tired and needing sleep is a basic drive of nature, like hunger. If you don't eat enough, you are driven to eat. People would not stop until they feel full. Christopher states that in essentially the same way, your sleep drive keeps an exact tally of accumulated waking hours. The brain's sleep load increases until you go to sleep, when the load starts to lighter (500).

Our brain works far cleverer than we think. "The brain keeps an exact accounting of how much sleep it is owed" (Christopher 500). People sometimes