The Importance of Sleep
Sleep is something that we don’t know a whole lot about. We do know that it has to be important. Our ancestors risked their lives in order to get some shut eye, we even spend one third of our lifetime sleeping.
Sleep is a battle between hormones, neurons and chemical reactions in your body trying to keep you awake. Different hormones, neurons, and chemical reactions try to send you to bed. No one actually wins the war. Instead they fight and win battles. If either side were to win the war, you will either stay asleep and not be able to wake up, or stay awake all the time.
We also know that our brain does not actually rest while we sleep, it keeps working throughout our sleep, however people that get more sleep often feel better and more refreshed than people who sleep less. This does not mean that you will be more productive if you sleep more. There are actually 2 different types of sleep schedules, Owls and Larks. Larks work better in the mornings, and go to bed at around 10 PM, Owls work better later on in the day, and don’t go to bed until later on in the night. Your brain will be more productive if you take a nap in the afternoon. This is because the war for sleep requires a lot of energy, and it peaks at around mid-day.
Finally, sleep actually helps your brain stay active and sharp, if you get your rest, you will be able to be productive and function at your maximum capacity. Sleep also helps your brain learn more. While you sleep, the brain will try and continue learning and finding answers to a problem or problems that you had in your day.
Sleep in Society
Although we know very little about sleep, we are aware that the human body requires it. But is sleep actually as important as people claim it is? Let’s find out.
In the book “Brain Rules” by John Medina, sleep is compared to a war. There are two sides to this war. On one side, we have the hormones and neurons trying to keep our body awake. On the other side, we have a different set of hormones and neurons trying to send our body to sleep. (Medina, 2008, p. 42–43)
Although it is hard for some aspects of society to believe, sleep actually helps you be a lot more productive. Studies show that that an academic student is setting him or herself up for failure if he or she does not get consistent sleep, her grades may drop from being in the top 10% of her class to being in the bottom 9%(Medina, 2008, p. 47–48) That is not the only study done about sleep affecting your cognitive abilities. As the book Brain Rules, by John Medina suggests, “Soldiers responsible for operating complex military hardware. One night’s loss of sleep resulted in about a 30 percent loss in overall cognitive skill, with a subsequent drop in performance. Bump that to two nights of sleep loss, and the loss in cognitive skill doubles to 60 percent.” There are also different types of sleep schedules. Owls, larks and everything in between. Owls generally work best at night, larks wake up early, and there are people in between who wake up early and can work best at night.(Medina, 2008, p. 44–45).
Now that we have a basic understanding of how bad a poor night of rest is, and how different people have different sleep schedules we should consider all of the activities that are affected by this problem.
First off, we have schools. I’ll use our school as an example. The Colegio Panamericano work day begins at 6:45 AM, and you do not get out of there until 2:40. If you have extra curricular activities you are not leaving campus until 4:30. People do not always have a short commute to the school. Depending on where you live, it might be at least an hour until you reach home. Once you return home, you have to do homework with a body that did not receive rest. Depending on your teacher, you will have between 1 hour to 30 minutes of work. You have to do all that for about 4–6 subjects. If you spend 1 hour per subject and have to do homework for 4 different subjects, you will be doing homework up until 9:30. You have to go to bed as soon as possible in order for you to sleep more than 7 hours and not be like the student from the study.
There are other factors involved, According to the book there is a time of the day in the early afternoon in which you are tired. “We’ll call it the nap zone, a period of time in the midafternoon when we experience transient sleepiness. It can be nearly impossible to get anything done during this time, and if you attempt to push through, which is what most of us do, you can spend much of your afternoon fighting a gnawing tiredness. It’s a fight because the brain really wants to take a nap and does not care what its owner is doing” (Medina, 2008, p. 44–45). If kids can’t get their nap due to school, productivity levels will be low. Schools could be more productive if they worked using students and teacher’s sleep schedules. Our brain also learns while we sleep. Studies have proven that our brains work and think of possible solutions to problems while the body is resting, if we cut down the time kids sleep, the less time students will be able to learn.
There are many different aspects of life that require sleep, and society often ignores them. People will be more productive if we can work according to our sleep schedules, as well if they can get a good night’s sleep.
Medina, John. Brain Rules: 12 Principles For Surviving And Thriving At Work, Home, And School. Seattle, WA: Pear Press, 2008. Print.