There are two different kinds of people. The ones, who can not wait to go to bed, love to sleep in whenever they can and just love their sleep, and the others, who can not wait to wake up again, stay up as long as possible before going to bed and just think, sleep is boring. If you are part of the second group, I am going to explain to you, why sleep is so important and what happens while you are sleeping.
What happens without or with not enough sleep?
Not without reason, sleep is one of the most basic human needs. A healthy sleep is important not only for feeling good the next day but above all for our health and well-being. Adults should sleep seven to nine hours each night. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40% of adults in the USA, don’t get enough sleep. The consequences can be fatal.
Consequences of lack of sleep in adults:
Apart from the health consequences (which we will get to in a moment), productivity during the day decreases, constant yawning occurs, one has difficulty concentrating, and during activities such as reading and watching TV, one nods off. In addition, mood swings and irritability occur.
Consequences of lack of sleep in kids:
Like adults, children have difficulty getting up in the morning, mood swings, irritability and difficulty concentrating. In addition, symptoms such as hyperactivity, anger outbursts and daytime sleepiness appear.
Some of the Symptoms have an impact on private and professional everyday life. Lack of sleep makes you less productive during the day. Your work or school suffers from your hyperactivity and your missing concentration. You need longer for tasks and make more mistakes. Your reduced reaction time and the minute sleeps during the day sometimes have a greater effect on your fitness to drive than alcohol. There is evidence that fatigue plays a role in around a quarter of all serious and fatal car accidents.
Chronic lack of sleep leads to disease:
The range of possible diseases is very large. Chronic sleep deprivation, which is lack of sleep over a longer period, can lead to psychological diseases like depression and ADHD, as well as chronic diseases like heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and obesity.
It has also been shown that lack of sleep can lead to reduced life expectancy and increased mortality.
Now we know, why we need sleep not only to enjoy the next day but also for our health. But what even happens during our sleep?
There are five phases of sleep:
Every phase goes hand in hand with the one before. In phase one, we transition from awake to asleep. We can still use our muscles and our breathing is still the same, while brain activities slightly slow down. After the first, very short phase, our breathing and heart rate slow down. Our muscles relax, the body temperature decreases and brain waves are less active. The third phase is already a pretty deep sleep. Due to the delta waves (which is a lower frequency of our brain waves), this phase is also called slow wave sleep. The body relaxes even further and it is hard to wake a person up.
The following phase is also the deepest sleep. It is considered the healing phase, because memories get transferred from the short term memory to the long term memory, tissue growth and repair are accelerated and energy is restored. Last but not least, there is a unique phase called rapid eye movement sleep (REM). This sleep is marked by fast moving eyes behind the eyelids and from paralyzed muscles. The breathing, heart rate, blood pressure and brain activity is similar when you are awake.
During our sleep, we circle through the five phases multiple times. Each circle takes 70 to 120 minutes.
Before I finish the article, I want to give you a few tips on how to improve your sleep. It helps to have positive activities and thoughts throughout the day. Do not use your phone or TV before sleeping and keep the bedroom cool and dark. Furthermore, do not eat right before going to bed.
So as you can see, even if you think sleeping is boring, you should make sure to get a very good and long sleep. I promise you will feel better the next day and also your quality of life will improve in the long term. If you don’t like sleeping, at least do it for your health and your grades. One or two hours more sleep can save you a lot of time learning for the next exam.
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep-deprivation (March 24, 2022)
https://www.aok.de/pk/magazin/wohlbefinden/schlaf/zu-diesen-symptomen-fuehrt-schlafmangel/ (05.08.2022)
https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2022/08/why-sleep-is-essential-for-survival (August 18, 2022)