Kristiana Kokott
ENG 105
Professor Wolfe
6 September 2017
Waking with Natural Light
In “Snoozers Are, in Fact, Losers,” Maria Konnikova highlights the importance of fighting the urge to slam the “snooze” button on the alarm clock every morning. Konnikova argues that individuals should strive to sync their daily morning routine to their internal circadian rhythm to live better and be more productive. Her solution to taming the widespread epidemic of sleeplessness and subpar productivity involves adding localized time zones across countries to promote internally synchronized schedules. She ultimately persuades readers to try relying on their internal rhythms instead of alarm clocks, but her argument for a solution to sync with our internal clocks …show more content…
To support her claim that decisions made during this limbo between feeling groggy and fully alert are “neither rational nor optimal,” Konnikova brings in a secondary expert. She quotes Kenneth Wright, a neuroscientist and chronobiology expert at Colorado University at Boulder, when contending that cognition is “worst near habitual wake time.” By definition, cognition is “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses” (“Cognition”). Konnikova makes clear that the brain is not at its full capacity when a person wakes up, but fails to relate that lack of cognitive ability to lesser decision-making …show more content…
The transition seems effortless and, while the first explanation of evidence may feel like a stretch to some readers, implying that stress can lead to higher consumption of alcohol and tobacco products does not seem unrealistic. However, Konnikova’s logic becomes difficult to grasp when she states that poor sleep timing can lead to “cancer, potentially fatal heart conditions, and other chronic diseases, like metabolic syndrome and diabetes.” Not only do these ramifications seem dire, but, other than citing the names of researchers Till Roenneberg and Marc Wittmann, these claims are largely unsupported. With these dramatic implications, the reader is expecting details on the study used to attain these results and is likely expecting a presentation of other studies to corroborate the findings of the one used in this essay. While Konnikova does present other studies, none of the findings actually corroborate the startling ones made by Roenneberg and Wittmann, and instead present simpler, less outlandish findings based on their study of medical students: sleep timing affected medical students’ results more than sleep duration did. Based on the results, the reader can imply that this study focused on measuring the performance of medical students in class and on preclinical board exams for the purpose of determining which factor was more
ENG 105
Professor Wolfe
6 September 2017
Waking with Natural Light
In “Snoozers Are, in Fact, Losers,” Maria Konnikova highlights the importance of fighting the urge to slam the “snooze” button on the alarm clock every morning. Konnikova argues that individuals should strive to sync their daily morning routine to their internal circadian rhythm to live better and be more productive. Her solution to taming the widespread epidemic of sleeplessness and subpar productivity involves adding localized time zones across countries to promote internally synchronized schedules. She ultimately persuades readers to try relying on their internal rhythms instead of alarm clocks, but her argument for a solution to sync with our internal clocks …show more content…
To support her claim that decisions made during this limbo between feeling groggy and fully alert are “neither rational nor optimal,” Konnikova brings in a secondary expert. She quotes Kenneth Wright, a neuroscientist and chronobiology expert at Colorado University at Boulder, when contending that cognition is “worst near habitual wake time.” By definition, cognition is “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses” (“Cognition”). Konnikova makes clear that the brain is not at its full capacity when a person wakes up, but fails to relate that lack of cognitive ability to lesser decision-making …show more content…
The transition seems effortless and, while the first explanation of evidence may feel like a stretch to some readers, implying that stress can lead to higher consumption of alcohol and tobacco products does not seem unrealistic. However, Konnikova’s logic becomes difficult to grasp when she states that poor sleep timing can lead to “cancer, potentially fatal heart conditions, and other chronic diseases, like metabolic syndrome and diabetes.” Not only do these ramifications seem dire, but, other than citing the names of researchers Till Roenneberg and Marc Wittmann, these claims are largely unsupported. With these dramatic implications, the reader is expecting details on the study used to attain these results and is likely expecting a presentation of other studies to corroborate the findings of the one used in this essay. While Konnikova does present other studies, none of the findings actually corroborate the startling ones made by Roenneberg and Wittmann, and instead present simpler, less outlandish findings based on their study of medical students: sleep timing affected medical students’ results more than sleep duration did. Based on the results, the reader can imply that this study focused on measuring the performance of medical students in class and on preclinical board exams for the purpose of determining which factor was more