The Importance of Sleep and its effects on the Brain

 

The Importance of Sleep and its effects on the Brain

 

Many people in the world stay up all night whether it’s to stay up studying for an exam or to spend a night out with friends. In fact, it has been reported that in the U.S. about 35% of adults do not get enough sleep they need to function the next day³. While we may not feel the repercussions of these actions while we are young and full of energy recent studies have shown that sleep isn’t just important to be able to function for the next day. In fact, sleep plays a very key role in our health and cognitive abilities.

A news article “The health toll for poor sleep” published in The New York Times examines how sleep influences our health. People already had a tough time maintaining good sleeping habits, but the coronavirus pandemic only worsened people’s sleep schedules¹. This is because people could work anytime since everything is remote. This meant that people would spend all night doing work instead of sleeping without knowing the significant health issues that are related to it. Sleep deprivation is not only bad for your mind, but much serious health conditions can arise due to lack of sleep such as heart disease, blood pressure, and diabetes 2¹. While sleep deprivation may not seem to be involved with these conditions directly the impact that sleep has on our body and mind is being researched and tested more intensely to figure out the cause of sleep having a much more important role than initially realized.

A study done by Phyllis Zee goes into detail about the importance of circadian rhythm which is a process that regulates the internal processes in our body. When the Circadian rhythm is disrupted, it can cause serious negative impacts on one’s mental and physical health. Research suggests that circadian misalignment and decreased amplitude of several rhythms have been shown to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease². It was observed that mice models who had Parkinson’s disease showed a decrease in neuron activity which may have been due to a misalignment of circadian rhythm due to disruption. Circadian disruption and poor sleep quality are normally associated with neurodevelopment disorders such as Smith-Magenis Syndrome (SMS)². These are responsible for the encoding of retinoic acid-induced 1 (RAL1). Mice deficient in RAL1 have a shortened period which is due to the activation of core clock gene transcription whereas in humans it was shown to implicate the regulation of melatonin secretion². A strategy to be able to regulate SMS in humans is for them to take melatonin supplementation which has been shown to help realign the circadian system which is then able to improve sleep and cognitive outcome measures². Children with autism were treated with melatonin and it significantly improved their sleep quality.

As the research done by Phyllis Zee and his colleagues suggests that sleep is linked to not only how fatigued one might get the next day but also that not getting enough sleep and disrupting the body’s circadian rhythm can cause serious neurological and mental health disorders. Although the negative effects of sleep may not be apparent in everyday life the negative effects can be seen more prominently as time goes by. One should ensure good quality and quantity of sleep before it is too late to undo the damage of disrupting one’s circadian rhythm to be able to live a healthy life.

Works Cited

 

Brody, Jane E. “The Health Toll of Poor Sleep.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Dec. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/well/mind/sleep-health.html.

Fishbein, Anna B., et al. “Circadian Disruption and Human Health.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, American Society for Clinical Investigation, 7 Oct. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI148286.

Leech, Joe. “10 Top Benefits of Getting More Sleep.” Healthline, Healthline Media, 6 Jan. 2022, https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-reasons-why-good-sleep-is-important.