As mammals, one of our many natural instincts is sleep. The importance of slumber is comparable to the life-sustaining function of eating. In fact, a human being can die from sleep deprivation in a shorter time than starvation. The longest recorded period of sleep deprivation is 264 hours (eleven days) set by 17 year-old Randy Gardener in 1965 and in 2012, when a Chinese man named Jiang Xiaoshan died after eleven days of unrest (Gillian, Chan). Additionally, Scientific American reports that in 1981, several Irish protesters survived without nourishment as long as 46 to 73 days. The great difference between eleven days and forty-six only serves to emphasize the importance of sleep in our lives. Indeed, a good night’s rest is vital to our survival,
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While energy conservation is pretty self-explanatory, the theories of restoration and brain plasticity are a bit more complicated. The restorative theory, according to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard, is the body’s way of refreshing itself after a long day. During sleep, “restorative functions in the body like muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and growth hormone release occor m,ostly…during sleep,” (Why). Sleep can rejuvenate the the body, but the brain plasticity theory suggests the same for your thinking organ as well. In short, brain plasticity is when the brain processes all of the day’s events, picking and choosing which events to store into your memory and which unnecessary events to disregard (Why). Since an individual’s brain can only contain so much information on a daily basis, the brain plasticity theory during sleep is a promising one. Brain plasticity is the reason why you can remember important things like the date of an upcoming test or a doctor’s appointment, but not the color of the car that pulled up next to your that morning, for …show more content…
At this stage, research studies have found that the amount of antibodies in your system reduces by 50%, making you highly susceptible to catch, and possibly die from, mild sicknesses (Sleep). As recorded by Harvard Magazine, doctors studied sleep deprivation on humans, and as they stayed awake their mental states became progressively worse and devolved into psychosis. If you dare to venture into sleeplessness for eleven days like Mr. Gardener and Mr. Xiaoshan, you will encounter a plethora of side-effects. On Gardener’s eleventh day, he experienced blurred vision, involuntary eye movement, and vivid hallucinations, like Gardner’s strange belief that he was a quarterback for an NFL team (Sleep). If you’re willing to risk paranoia, hallucinations, immune deficiency, and psychosis, sleep deprivation is the answer for you! Strangely enough, while sleep deprivation effects a person during the sleeplessness, there have been no psychological or physical effects; however, there are studies that have linked sleep deprivation to an increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and high blood pressure (Science). And so begs the question: is sleep really for the weak? The answer is no. Sleep is not for the weak, sleep-- and the lack of it-- makes the
While energy conservation is pretty self-explanatory, the theories of restoration and brain plasticity are a bit more complicated. The restorative theory, according to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard, is the body’s way of refreshing itself after a long day. During sleep, “restorative functions in the body like muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and growth hormone release occor m,ostly…during sleep,” (Why). Sleep can rejuvenate the the body, but the brain plasticity theory suggests the same for your thinking organ as well. In short, brain plasticity is when the brain processes all of the day’s events, picking and choosing which events to store into your memory and which unnecessary events to disregard (Why). Since an individual’s brain can only contain so much information on a daily basis, the brain plasticity theory during sleep is a promising one. Brain plasticity is the reason why you can remember important things like the date of an upcoming test or a doctor’s appointment, but not the color of the car that pulled up next to your that morning, for …show more content…
At this stage, research studies have found that the amount of antibodies in your system reduces by 50%, making you highly susceptible to catch, and possibly die from, mild sicknesses (Sleep). As recorded by Harvard Magazine, doctors studied sleep deprivation on humans, and as they stayed awake their mental states became progressively worse and devolved into psychosis. If you dare to venture into sleeplessness for eleven days like Mr. Gardener and Mr. Xiaoshan, you will encounter a plethora of side-effects. On Gardener’s eleventh day, he experienced blurred vision, involuntary eye movement, and vivid hallucinations, like Gardner’s strange belief that he was a quarterback for an NFL team (Sleep). If you’re willing to risk paranoia, hallucinations, immune deficiency, and psychosis, sleep deprivation is the answer for you! Strangely enough, while sleep deprivation effects a person during the sleeplessness, there have been no psychological or physical effects; however, there are studies that have linked sleep deprivation to an increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and high blood pressure (Science). And so begs the question: is sleep really for the weak? The answer is no. Sleep is not for the weak, sleep-- and the lack of it-- makes the