I picked this topic because I thought it was interesting and I was curious to know the cost of not sleeping. I also know that most high school students don't get even close to the amount of sleep that they should be getting. I even like to stay up later than I should and therefore don't get enough sleep, and I wanted to know what happens when you don't get the suggested amount of sleep.
I found that sleep deprivation could be very dangerous and fatal even. Sleep deprivation takes a big toll on your brain and the way you act. When you don't get enough sleep, you can suffer some memory loss and becomes much harder to learn. It also becomes very hard to concentrate. One of the hardest subjects in school for sleep deprived students is math. Sleep deprived people also have trouble coming up with new or imaginative words, and so they tend to repeat words or phrases. The same goes for their brain. They usually have a repetitive thought process.
Other signs of sleep deprivation are the inability to deliver a statement very well. If someone is sleep deprived, they have slurred speech, they stutter, they speak in monotone, and speak at a much slower pace than usual. In fact, mostly everything they do is slow. They have an inability to make quick, logical decisions. Also, if someone continually is deprived of sleep, they can suffer from dramatic weight changes (more likely weight gain). This is because the amount of sleep people gets affect their hormones. When your deprived of sleep, levels of leptin shrink (a hormone that tells you you're full), and levels of ghrelin go up (a hormone that makes you hungry). That means that nothing you eat will really satisfy you, and so you eat more than usual.
Also, your metabolism is messed up with less sleep, and sugars you eat are turned primarily to fat. There are also more serious effects of sleep deprivation. Hallucinations, are one of these, and the after these, if you were to go longer without sleep, it could result in temporary insanity. Worse are the other things related to sleep deprivation. Some of these are as follows: depression, heart disease, hypertension, irritability, tremors, and cancerous cells. By far the worst thing that can happen to a sleep-deprived individual is death. Usually that happens because of a weakened immune system because of lack of sleep (the number of white cells within the body decreases).
Even though all this can occur, interestingly enough, sleep deprived subjects have a better short-term memory than their well-rested counter parts. “Lack of sleep disrupts every physiologic function in the body,” said Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago. “We have nothing in our biology that allows us to adapt to this behavior.”
This was not the answer I really expected. I'd thought that sleep deprivation wouldn't be that serious or cause so many problems. I thought that lack of sleep wouldn't do a whole lot other than make you more tired and make it hard to concentrate. I really didn't expect it to be so harmful or serious.
This will probably make a little difference in my lifestyle. I still like night more than day and like staying up late, but I guess I'll try not to stay up late quite so much.
