The Importance Of Sleep Research Papers Example

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Among the hundreds of things we do every single day of our lives, sleeping is the most important and dearest activity we have. If no one can miss eating, drinking or spending quality time with loved ones, then perhaps no one can miss sleeping either, since it is vital to keep the eating, drinking and socializing on the go.I believe sleeping fewer benefits no one while sleeping more, benefits everyone. (Ohayon et al., p. 55)
A single therapy for relief, a therapy to improve people’s temperaments, their mood, improve their memories and prevent a lot of careless car accidents would be a sufficient amount of sleep. We need to believe in breaking the myth that sleeping less is good while oversleeping or getting more sleep than we need is deleterious to health. Let us face the truth that no matter how much sleep we get, be it less or more, it is never enough for us. Hence keeping everyone’s needs in mind, we all need to set a bar for ten hours of sleep every night, not less and even let it exceed a little since sleeping is a personal favorite. (Takashi, n.pag)
One would not raise their hands in favor of sleeping only because it is in their vested interests. However, it is in everyone’s interests. There would not be a single businessperson, any lawyer, any teacher or student, any boy or girl, or even the President himself who did not wish they could get all the sleep in the world because they are always tired. The reason is sticking to the old norms and rules of sleep that were probably set by a man who probably did not have as much of the workload and business we have going on about in the present day.
Sleeping is a personal choice; everybody sleeps when they feel like it then what is with the rules of sleeping at ten and waking at six, so there are the eight complete hours of sleep that were mandatory for mankind? Do eight hours really help anyone? They surely do not help little children who are often found wailing and begging their mothers or fathers to let them sleep a little more because they do not want to go to school.The problem is not school itself; the problem is their want of sleep. Then there are men who wake up in a hassle for their offices every weekday, stumbling, rushing, frustrated, tired, yelling and cursing at everyone they come across only because they are running late for office, even though they remember falling asleep early the last night. The problem again is not the office; it is their sleep that they feel deprived of. (Pilcher et al., p.85).
My point is, life should not be bound by rules and regulations that make it even more difficult to deal with, if it is not difficult enough already. Why must there be rules governing something as essential as sleep when every man was born free and can act as freely as he would wish to.We need to break loose of the world’s ‘golden’ rule of sleeping an optimum eight hours and not more because they can apparently be harmful to us. Sleep should be allowed for all and alike, ten hours and more each day. The advantages of this are endless. They benefit every age group, every worker and every institution as a whole.
However, being a student I reckon that it will benefit all my fellow students everywhere if ten hours of sleep were made a golden rule. The hours at schools and colleges would be reduced a little since students would be coming in a late, as a school, itself would start late.
Then they would not be overburdened with assignments, class projects, excessive workload, and dreaded homework. In fact, teachers would take a liking to giving lesser work to their students realizing that they need to sleep because if they will not their natural ability to work hard, absorb academic material and implement it in their examinations. So the point here is not only will students benefit from a most favorable amount of sleep every day, it will benefit the teachers and over all the institution. On the one hand, there will be less homework for students, they will not be burdened with the pressure of schoolwork and staying up late to finish it off and instead they will catch up on their much-needed sleep. Also, it will in turn benefit the school or college where these students study because if they sleep well enough they will develop stronger memories and more active minds, as science proves it, hence they will perform better on their tests and help to bring the test results of their respective institutions up. It is a win-win situation created here, all because of a mere two-hour addition of sleep. (Siegel, 92).
Not only does this make students, teachers and principals happy, it makes an entire household happy. The grumpy husband who never got enough sleep because he had to wake up early for office, now wakes up content because he had ten hours of good sleep and since his office begins a little late, he is in no particular hurry to rush to his office, frazzled and out of his wits. Instead, the humble man is now happy with his life, shows his love to his family, his wife, and children and does not necessarily get angry at them for a reason they are not to be held at fault with. The only thing that helped him was his sleep and nothing else.
Oversleeping has become a part of the society where eight hours of sleep are mandatory and essential. However, if the ten hour of sleep policy is implemented, oversleeping would no more remain an issue with the masses and the most common excuse they can find is ‘We only follow the rules and complete the ten-hour sleep cycle’. This way, many people could be saved from humiliating situations, undue embarrassment and anger they would have to face at the hands of their superiors in the field of life they are in.
For instance, a man who was busy partying with his friends over the weekend after an exhausting week at work simply forgets that he had an important presentation at work the next day. It is too late to begin now; he thinks and decides to simply sleep instead. The outcome from the ten hours of sleep would be his excuse for not being able to come in time, and his presentation would be postponed until the next time hence he gets an extra day for making it. The benefits are countless really. The boss would understand that his employee needs his sleep, and thus he would never call him or rebuke him for something that is equally important for everyone.
This can apply to anyone in college as well. Many students do not wish to face a certain teacher first thing in the morning due to some personal issues with them. The dislike is for the person, not the subject. In some cases, it could be for the subject also but that is a rarity. Anyway, the student can put off that particular class especially if they reside in dorms, with the simple excuse of catching up on their sleep because they had to study for an important test they have later in the week.
This thought saves a thousand lives, literally. The dreadful steps to that one dreaded class can be simply avoided by sleep. The concept of oversleeping must never be mistaken. It is crucial and important. Over-sleepers are only those people that do not get enough sleep hence they must be sympathized with rather than reprimanded for their actions.
Sleeping in excess is not a myth or supposed idea that I talk of here. It is proven that many people have a sleep debt, a deprivation of sleep that is caused by more work and less sleep. It needs to be noted that in a twenty-four hour day if a person sleeps for eight hours and stays up for sixteen hours, the mind and the body are bound to get tired and worked up. This develops a buildup of sleep debt that makes a person groggy, tired, sleepy and unable to work their best, be that person a student or teacher or an office worker. In a research carried out through volunteers suffering from sleep debt, they were allowed to sleep up to twelve, even fourteen hours every day of the week. At the end of the study, it was discovered they reduced their sleep cycle to ten hours after a couple of weeks because they had then recovered from their sleep debt and now they had reached their optimum sleep requirement (Pilcher et al., 597). This result also proved that most people around the world would be suffering from the same condition and the worst part is, they are not even aware of what they are going through.
Psychology backs the idea of sleeping for a good ten hours because when a person is sleep deprived they can develop many health problems such as weak memories, slowed and fuzzy thinking, inability to make decisions be greater victims of motor vehicle accidents. Improving their sleep cycle will ultimately get them rid of these problems. (Ferara and Luigi, n.pag).
In addition, in my defense of the ten-hour sleep, it is worth mentioning here the importance of napping. Naps are good for the health too especially when the mind is overworked in situations like excessive homework or studying for a hard test. Hence, everyone should take naps when they feel like taking them; however, their time span must be excluded from the ten-hour sleep essential for our health. Naps are sometimes involuntary, and people do doze off without knowing and this does not really mean they will wake up fresh.Usually, some wake up even tired than before. Therefore, it is unfair to say that such individuals do not need ten hours of essential sleep. Ladies will take the most liking to it since their sleep is a special kind quoted as ‘beauty sleep’ so perhaps if they sleep more it could enhance their beauty as well; one can’t be sure but trying it would not be a bad idea. ( Alhola et al., 557).
In my conclusion, sleep is an essential part of life- all living organisms require it on the basis of their survival. As humans, we need the most of it because we carry the highest use of our mental faculties, and that takes a toll on our brain as well as body. The fact that sleep facilitates our efficiency for the day to day work implies that more sleep actually helps to make the body more efficient and rejuvenated for more work. The added benefits of sleep in enhancing health and beauty correlate to the fact of sleeping more which all humanity would readily approve of. Hence, a greater amount of sleep is nothing harmful and needs to be granted to people so everyone can enjoy the goodness of more rest and sleep, and it would greatly add a lot of peace into their lives.

References

Alhola, Paula, Polo-Kantolo, Paivi. Sleep Deprivation: Impact on cognitive Performance.
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Ferrara, Michele, De Gennaro, Luigi. How much sleep do we need .Web 2001. N .pag.
Ohayon et al., Meta-Analysis of Quantitative Sleep Parameters. Sleep. Vol27, Web, 2007. 1255-
56
Pilcher, June I, Ginter, Douglas R, Sadowsly, Brigitte. Sleep quality versus sleep quantity:
relationships between sleep and measures of health, well-being and sleepiness in college students.Elsevier.Issue 6. Vol 42. 583-596.
Siegel, Jerome, M. Why we sleep. Scientific American. Web. November 2003. 92-93
Takahashi, Masaya. Prioritizing sleep for healthy work schedules. Journal of Physiological
Anthropology. Japan. Vol 31. 13 Mar, 2012.