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Sleep, one of the most powerful necessities for human existence is being deprived
of people everywhere. Students are being subject to sleep deprivation due to homework,
extra curricular activities and early school starting times. Sleep disorders are more
prominent now than ever, and suggested sleep amounts are being replaced with caffeine
and taurine. Sleep has the power to be debilitating with lack of sleep as well as helpful
with adequate amounts of sleep. Sleep is required for many things in the body, mainly
Sleep has the power of keeping your heart healthy and reducing inflammation.
Psychological benefits include reducing stress, increasing alertness, and reducing ones
risk for depression.(kidshealth.org) One needs sleep for learning and memory, sleep helps
the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory
consolidation. Studies from Harvard’s medical center say that students who took a nap
after learning new materials scored higher on tests than students who had not taken a nap.
Sleep also affects metabolism and weight, chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight
gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates. Sleep debt
contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the day, which increases the risk of
falling asleep behind the wheel. Sleep loss may also result in irritability, impatience, and
inability to concentrate. Sleep deprivation alters immune functions, including the activity
of the body’s “killer cells” (harvard.edu). Serious sleep disorders have been linked to
disorders each year and an additional 20 million people experience occasional sleep
remain undiagnosed. Sleep disorders are cause by a multitude of things such as genetics,
blindness, mental illness, physical illness and aging. Insomnia is difficulty initiating or
and 10% have chronic insomnia. This sleep disorder affects all age groups. Among
adults, insomnia affects women more often than men. It is typically more common in
people in lower socioeconomic groups, chronic alcoholics, and mental health patients.
Stress most commonly triggers short-term or acute insomnia. If one does not address their
insomnia, however, it may develop into chronic insomnia. Another sleep disorder called
Narcolepsy which causes excessive sleepiness and frequent daytime sleep attacks. One
may have narcolepsy if they suffer from periods of extreme drowsiness every 3 to 4 hours
during the day. One may feel a strong urge to sleep, often followed by a short nap. They
may experience sleep paralysis, when one is unable to move immediately after waking
up. It may also happen when one first becomes drowsy. Cataplexy is also common,
which is a sudden loss of muscle tone while awake, resulting in the inability to move.
Strong emotions, such as laughter or anger, will often bring on cataplexy. Most attacks
last for less than 30 seconds and can be missed. Ones head will suddenly fall forward,
jaw will become slack, and their knees will buckle. Conditions that cause insomnia, such
as disrupted work schedules, can make narcolepsy worse. Sleep apnea is a common
disorder in which you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you
sleep. Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. They often occur 5 to 30
times or more an hour. Typically, normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a
loud snort or choking sound. Sleep apnea usually is a chronic condition that disrupts your
sleep 3 or more nights each week. One may often move out of deep sleep and into light
sleep when their breathing pauses or becomes shallow. This results in poor sleep quality
that makes one tired during the day. Sleep apnea is one of the leading causes of excessive
daytime sleepiness.
The Recommendation that has been made by doctors for the amount of sleep one
should get from 12-18 years of age is 10 hours. Teens on average get just 7.3 hours a
night. 15% were receiving 8.5 hours and 26% were getting less than 6.5 hours of sleep
each night. High school seniors on average are sleeping 2 hours less than they should
each night (medicalnewstoday.com) 90% of parents felt their children were getting
enough sleep while an alarming 59% of the children felt they were not getting adequate
sleep. 28% of all teenagers say they are too tired to do any type of physical exercise.
Over half of all teenagers have been driving their car while feeling sleepy. 22% of all
high school kids fall asleep while doing their homework once a week. 14% of high school
students arrive late to school at least once a week because they have problems getting up.
28% of high school students fall asleep while at school. Teens and infants need the most
sleep but teens are getting the least out of all age groups due to homework, school
starting times, and extra curricular activities. A good night's sleep is known to improve
people's ability to learn actions such as mirror writing. REM sleep, when most dreaming
occurs, is thought to be particularly important. The role of sleep in factual learning has
been less clear. Now Matthew Tucker at The City University of New York and his
colleagues have shown that even a nap with no REM sleep can help. Volunteers were told
to memorize pairs of words and to practice tracing images in a mirror. When they were
tested straight afterwards and 6 hours later, those who had been allowed a nap of up to 1
hour before the re-test scored 15 per cent better in the factual test than the non-nappers,
time devoted to daytime napping has been considered counterproductive," the researchers
say. It now seems sleep is "an important mechanism for memory formation". Sleep has
Alternate methods of energy have been found through use of caffeinated products
such as coffee, sodas, teas and energy drinks. The main ingredient in coffee that gives us
that jolt is caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant. Caffeine is found naturally in
coffee beans, tea leaves, and chocolate, and is a popular added ingredient in carbonated
aspirin, and weight control aids. It is estimated that in the U.S., 75% of caffeine intake
comes from coffee. Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system by blocking
adenosine, a neurotransmitter that normally causes a calming effect in the body. The
resulting neural stimulation due to this blockage causes the adrenal glands to release
adrenaline, the "fight or flight" hormone. Ones heart rate increases, pupils dilate, muscles
tighten up, and glucose is released into ones blood stream for extra energy. Caffeine also
increases dopamine. Dopamine activates the pleasure in parts of the brain. It has been
suspected that this also contributes to caffeine addiction. Physiologically, caffeine makes
one feel alert, pumps adrenaline to give energy and changes dopamine production to
make one feel good. (overcaffeinated.org) 75% of children say they consumed at least
one drink containing caffeine each day. 31% of those children said they consumed 3 or
The power of sleep helps students achieve higher test scores and allow them to
remain healthy. School starting times happen to be a cause for such sleep deprivation.
Most high schools begin their day around 7:30 a.m., which leaves many teenagers
nodding off in the morning. To help sleepy teens, some school districts have delayed the
opening of the high school day. Educational researcher Kyla Wahlstrom, from the
University of Minnesota, has been following districts that have changed their start times,
tracking the effect on schools and students. The Minneapolis school district, for example,
changed its start time from 7:20 to 8:40 a.m., an extra hour and twenty minutes each
morning. Wahlstrom says the students have benefited from the change. "Students
reported less depression when there was a later starting time," she says. "And teachers
reported that students were more alert and ready for learning. Parents reported that their
children were easier to live with because their emotions were more regulated."
Wahlstrom also found a decrease in the number of students who were dropping out of
school. According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than 80 school districts around
the country have now made the change to start their high schools later. For many school
districts, a major obstacle in changing their start times is the cost and scheduling of buses.
Some districts, however, have juggled their bus schedules without any additional
expense. (npr.org)
Schools should start later to increase test scores, and decrease dependence on
caffeine and depression. Sleep, the most vital of all processes we go through is being
deprived of people everywhere, and if schools could start an hour later everyone would