Don't Give Up on Your Dreams, Sleep Longer

Don’t Give Up on Your Dreams, Sleep Longer

            What is the purpose of sleep, and why do we spend so much time doing it? Human beings spend about a third of their lives sleeping and considering our busy lives when we are awake, we might wish that we had those extra hours to do whatever we need to do. Wei-Lin Chen’s article, “Consequences of Inadequate Sleep During the College Years: Sleep Deprivation, Grade Point Average, and College Graduation” goes into detail about how sleeping is important, especially for college students. The researchers found that there is a relationship between students’ lack of sleep, their GPAs, and receiving a college degree (Chen et al.). For the brain to function properly, students require enough sleep, which is difficult to achieve because of an abundance of deadlines, requirements, and involvements that they might undertake.

It has been reported that 70% of college students obtain an insufficient amount of sleep (Chen et al.). When the brain is not well-rested, it is more difficult to learn and retain information. We may find ourselves dosing off while trying to pay attention in class after staying up past our usual bedtime to finish that last assignment or study that last chapter. It is important to realize the implications of getting enough sleep in achieving our goals, and instead of pulling that all-nighter, it might be a better idea to just go to bed. Sleep deprivation was also found to be associated with lower odds of graduation, with a greater effect if it occurs during senior year (Chen et al.). So, we should carefully weigh our options, and it is easy to fall behind on sleep and struggle to catch up due to our requirements and behaviors.

This article relates to the research presented by Dr. Ravi Allada, specifically the article “Circadian Programming of the Ellipsoid Body Sleep Homeostat in Drosophila”, by Andreani et al., as they both talk about the effects of sleep deprivation. Ravi goes into detail about answering the question of why we sleep. He studies sleep cycles and sleep homeostasis, and these relate to the article as there is a certain amount of sleep that every person needs to obtain per night. The homeostatic process of sleep functions to promote sleep length and depth in relation to the duration and intensity of prior waking experience (Andreani et al.). The circadian rhythm, which is our body’s internal clock, functions with the sleep homeostat to restrict sleep to certain amount of the day, while the homeostat is what results in sleep drive – the need to sleep (Andreani et al.). If one does not get enough rest, this causes sleep deprivation, which is a result of the sleep drive increasing beyond normal tiredness. The circadian rhythm fluctuates based on a molecular clock, but the sleep drive is only reduced if we can fall asleep (Andreani et al.). As a result, there are specific parts of the day when people should perform certain activities. Sleep should happen at night, which is when the circadian rhythm is at its lowest level of sleep inhibition, which is why we feel tired around the time we usually fall asleep. It has been found that homeostatic sleep rebound is higher in the morning that in the evening, showing that by increasing our time awake, we increase the need for sleep independent of the time of day, which could explain why we might feel so tired during the day when we don’t get enough sleep (Andreani et al.). 

Sleep is important to health and learning. As college students, sometimes we sacrifice it because of our academic and social requirements, but this might cause more harm than good in the end. It also raises some questions about how our educational system is structured in the first place – should college students ever need to sacrifice sleep for their studies? As both Chen et al. and Andreani et al. have shown, skipping sleep has greater implications than we might think, both on our education and our state of being.

 

Works Cited

Andreani, T., Rosensweig, C., Siscobhan, S., Ogunlana, E., Kath, W., & Allada, R. (2022, June 

23). Circadian programming of the ellipsoid body sleep homeostat in drosophila. eLife. 

Retrieved December 14, 2022, from https://elifesciences.org/articles/74327

Chen, W.-L., & Chen, J.-H. (2019). Consequences of inadequate sleep during the college years: Sleep deprivation, grade point average, and college graduation. Preventive Medicine, 124, 23–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2019.04.017