Sleep!

There seems to be almost a...game or competition going on between the upper-classmen at my school on who slept the least every night. Around the campus, I would hear people say to their friends, “I only slept four hours last night,” like they’re proud about it or almost as if they were bragging about it. Then another person in the group would say, “Well I only slept three!” This horrible game needs to end soon and you would think so too, knowing the consequences of sleep deprivation.

Consequences 

1. In adolescents, it can stunt your growth because 80% of growth hormones are released during sleep.
2.  Sleep deprivation is also linked to obesity and diabetes, by messing with how our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by also messing with the hormone levels that affect our appetite. It messes with our natural bodily functions, and everything! :[
3.  The different systems of our body that are most affected by lack of sleep are: cardiovascular system, immune system, metabolic functions, and the brain & nervous system.
4.  It puts people into a higher risk of road accidents/car crashes and bad grades (oh no!), because you will not be as alert when drowsy. 
5. Sleeping helps store newly-acquired information into your brain, so lack of sleep will allow the things you just learned to slip away from your long-term memory. Studies show that people who slept after learning something new had better scores on a test after, while people who didn’t sleep got worse results.
6.  Lack of sleep will probably give you dark circles and bags under your eyes...nobody wants that!

Signs of Sleep Deprivation

Usually, people can tell pretty easily when they’re sleep deprived, because they’ll simply feel sleepy! Nonetheless, here are some signs:

1st stage: irritability, moodiness

2nd stage: bad memory, inability to multitask, dull emotions/emotional response

3rd stage: blanking out/micro-sleeps/nodding out/harder to focus or pay attention

Once you get to the third stage, driving gets dangerous or you’ll most likely start to fall asleep in class.

For more information on sleep, you can visit:

National Sleep Foundation

www.sleepfoundation.org

Sleep Research Society

www.sleepresearchsociety.org

Who knew there was a National Sleep Foundation??

Now if you will excuse me, I need to get some sleep of my own because it's 3:30am right now! I'm going to wake up tomorrow (actually today) as a midget and not remember anything I did the past week. I'm kidding, guys! ;P