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Evan Kasper

Professor Nathan Hellmers

ENG 1201

12 December 2020

Effects of Sleep Deprivation

Most everyone knows that sleep is important., but did you know, more than 51% of

adults say they get less sleep than they need per night on average. Most of these people realize

there are consequences to this, but the kicker is that many people are unaware of just how major

those effects can be. To add to the worries of misconceptions about the harms of sleep

deprivation, an alarming number of people report inadequate amounts of sleep. This is most

definitely a situation that can be dangerous, and is something more people need to be aware of.

Sleep deprivation has a very wide variety of negative effects on a person in all aspects of life,

including, but not limited to, emotionally, physically, and mentally . This is why it is important

for people of all ages to ensure that they get proper sleep so you can be as healthy and happy as

possible.

The necessary amount of sleep needed for an individual to function at there best and not

get the effects of sleep deprivation vary from person to person. Generally speaking, a newborn

should get between 14 and 17 hours including naps, per day. An infant should get between 12

and 16 hours a day including naps. A toddler should get between 11 and 14 hours per day

including naps. A pre school aged child should get between 10 and 13 hours per 24 hours

including naps. A school aged kid should get 9-12 hours of sleep per night. A teen should get 8

to 10 hours of sleep per night, and an adult should get at least 7 hours per night. These guidelines
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are not set and stone. Everyone has different needs when it comes to sleep but chances are if an

individual gets a notable amount less than recommended for them they are sleep deprived.

Another idea worth noting is that some days your body needs more sleep than you may

need on another day. For example, after a long day of a lot of exercise a person might need a

little more sleep that night to recover. Another possible reason is that your body is fighting off

some kind of sickness. Sleep helps your immune system work at its best and keep you healthy.

For a child or teen that is still growing, during a growth spurt you may need more sleep. Sleep

requirements are very fluid from person to person, so sometimes it can be difficult to tell if a

person is sleep deprived, based solely off of the amount of hours they slept.

The majority of the time, the best way to tell if you are sleep deprived is to listen to your

body. The easiest sign is if you simply feel overtired. You might have bags under your eyes. You

might feel sluggish, or weak. You may notice you are less productive than usual. These are all

signs you might be sleep deprived. Another sign is you might be more hungry than normal. This

is due to the brain not getting the energy it needs from sleep, so it tries to replace it with food.

This can lead to a more long term effect of sleep deprivation. The increased hunger, along with

sleep deprivation's damaging effects on your metabolism cause weight gain. So, weight gain in

itself can be a possible sign you are sleep deprived.

If you notice that you are acting on impulse more frequently than usual. This can apply to

many different things. Maybe you develop and short temper and lash out at people before

thinking. Maybe you start binge eating. Maybe you splurge in some online shopping when you

really should not have. These are all impulsive decisions. You also might notice your memory is

suffering, or you struggle to make decisions quickly. Inadequate sleep can slow down your

reaction time making everyday things like driving more dangerous. Slower reaction time is not
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the only danger of driving while sleep deprived. Many people who are sleep deprived can be

lulled to sleep behind the wheel. This is a danger to the driver, the passengers, and the

surrounding cars, and can quickly turn into a disaster. If you start to dose of behind the wheel,

you should definitely consider pulling over and getting some rest, or having someone else in the

car drive, while you get some rest in the passenger seat. These are just a few of the ways to tell if

you might be sleep deprived, but it is very important to listen to your body instead of ignoring

some of the potential signs.

A demographic where sleep deprivation hits hard is among students. The most recent

national poll shows that more than 87% of U.S. High School students get far less than the

recommended eight to ten hours of sleep per night. This creates a whole heap of problems. Many

students concentration will greatly suffer due to sleep deprivation. They will not learn as much

throughout the day as they should have because they struggle to focus. To add to that, even when

they are focusing, comprehension skills will lack so out of the information they are paying

attention for, they will not even be able to remember or process it all. As a result, the student's

grades will suffer, and the students also will not learn nearly as much.

Grades are only a piece of the puzzle as to why sleep deprivation is a big deal among

students. Students may struggle to stay motivated for after school activities, or even socially.

Sleep deprivation can also lead to depression among students. Sometimes it can even lead to

suicidal thoughts or actions. Needless to say the sleep epidemic among students is something that

needs to be reconciled. Later start times, or earlier release times could help. Another option is

less homework, or shorten lengths of after school activities. Regardless whether or not any of

these ideas are implemented, more education about both the importance of sleep, as well as
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education on depression and other mental illnesses is an absolute necessity among the school

systems.

Depression and sleep issues often go hand and hand. Depression effects people in

different ways. Some times people with depression sleep more than necessary. Often times there

sleep is sporadic, and inadequate. Many times the depression causes the sleep issues such as

insomnia, and the effects of insomnia and sleep deprivation are heightened by depression. On

other occasions, sleep deprivation can come first and lead into depression. Typically, the way

this happens is poor sleep leads to fatigue, which leads to a decline in your fitness level. Poor

sleep mixed with less physical activity can have major effects on your body and results in

negative effects physically and emotional. Which can result in depression. Every individuals

fight with sleep deprivation and depression is different, but it is extremely important to be aware

of it. Depression might be the single most harmful consequence of sleep deprivation, and it is not

mentioned when talking about proper sleep near as much as it should be.

Even if sleep deprivation does not result in clinical depression for everyone, the majority

of people experience some kind of negative emotional effects. Sleep deprivation makes you more

emotionally reactive. Studies show that when you are sleep deprived, you have a lot more trouble

controlling your emotions, both positive and negative. This is because sleep deprivation

increases activity in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that acts as the emotional rapid

response center. Not getting enough sleep causes this part of your brain to go into overdrive. You

might snap on a loved one and say things you did not mean because sleep deprivation causes you

to act impulsively. Lack of enough sleep also impedes communication between the amydgala

and the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex handles a lot of complex tasks, including

controlling impulses. When that part of your brain can not function at full capability because of a
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lack of sleep, it causes you to act without thinking more frequently. This can negatively effect

the way you interact with people and hurt relationships with co workers, family, friends, and

other people you care about.

Another major negative emotional effect sleep deprivation has is that someone who is

sleep deprived has a more negative outlook on things. Sleep deprivation causes what

psychologists call repetitive negative thinking. These thoughts are often very difficult to control

and can have quite the negative impact on your life. Studies show that the more sleep deprived

you are, the harder it is to shake these repetitive negative thoughts. Your mind gets trapped and

often times these thoughts can lead to depression and anxiety.

The University of California Berkeley conducted a study in which they discovered that

individual who suffer from sleep deprivation tend to worry more about the future. This is called

anticipatory anxiety. They discovered that this was even more prominent in those people who

were already prone to worrying. The way the experiment was done was brain scans of 18 healthy

young adults were observed. They were shown images, some containing emotionally disturbing

and others containing emotionally neutral content. In order to stimulate anticipatory anxiety, they

were told they were about to see a disturbing image. Scientists measured when participants were

well rested, as well as sleep deprived. It was discovered that the brain activity of the sleep

deprived participants in response to the anticipatory signal was much higher than those who had

proper sleep. So sleep deprivation triggers anxiety. Another concerning detail is that anxiety

often makes sleeping more difficult, so people often fall into a vicious cycle of anxiety and lack

of sleep that is quite difficult to break.

Another negative effect sleep deprivation can have emotionally is you feel less

appreciation for your significant other. This happens because it is harder to show empathy when
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you are sleep deprived. This is a major issue for obvious reasons and can put a strain on a

relationship. It hurts your sex life as well. Interestingly, it only took one person lacking enough

sleep for both partners to feel less gratitude towards each other.

Proper sleep is extremely important for the growth and development of children and

teens. Proper sleep promotes healthy growth. If you do not get enough sleep when you are still

growing, it is possible to stunt your growth. However, in terms of height, sleep does not have a

very major impact, because height is mostly determined by genetics, however in is still very

important that children and adolescence get enough sleep. Proper sleep regulates puberty and

fertility, increases muscle mass, and repairs cells and tissue.

Sleep and fitness are very much related. Whether your goal for exercising is to increase

muscle mass, improve cardiovascular health, improve endurance, or lose fat, sleep is absolutely

necessary. If you exercise without proper sleep, you are just undermining your own fitness goals.

Sleep does many things for your body after exercising. Your body recovers during sleep. It

recovers by conserving energy and building and repairing muscle tissue that was ripped during

the workout. HGH, or human growth hormone, is also released during sleep. Human growth

hormone is necessary for our bodies to build lean muscle.

The convenient thing about sleep and working out is that working out will help you sleep

better. So if you can get in the habit of working out, that should hopefully improve your sleep.

They go hand in hand. A good night sleep will make your workout better, because you will have

more energy to use during the workout. It is also proven that proper sleep helps motivate people

to stick to there workout plan and stay dedicated. The way sleep and working out are connected

is very beneficial, because if you do one, it automatically benefits the other, but you cannot have

one without the other, so you must stay disciplined.

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Adequate sleep is extremely important for the brain to function at the best of it's ability.

A recent study not only suggests that a good night sleep can boost your performance the

following day, but it is also by a far from negligible amount. In this study, researchers from two

Belgian Universities, Ghent and KU Leuven, surveyed 621 first year university students about

their sleeping habits during exams. They found that students who got a good night sleep

generally performed better on exams. More importantly though, the students who slept seven

hours each night during the exam period scored nearly 10 percent higher than those of students

who got less sleep than 7 hours per night. And most notably. students who extended their sleep

duration from six to seven hours saw an average increase of 1.7 points (on a scale of 20) for each

exam. All variables were accounted for. This study clearly shows that sleep can have a major

impact on test scores.

Getting enough sleep is absolutely vital to the success of college students. It is proven

that students with sleep disorders tend to earn lesser grades in classes such as math and english,

as compared to their peers that do not have sleep disorders. College students that pull all nighters

are more likely to have a lower GPA than those that do not. Some students attempt to make up

on sleep on the weekends, because they do not get enough sleep during the week. Despite these

efforts, these students still perform poorly in the classroom. This is because sleeping in on the

weekends gets there internal body clocks out of wack, and can make it difficult to adjust back to

the normal routine, and can cause them to struggle to stay awake in the classroom, especially

early in the week.

While knowing many of the dangerous effects of sleep deprivation is important, it is also

important to know some tips on how to get good sleep, and ways to avoid sleep deprivation.

Something that is great for health in general, sleep included, is exercise. Getting daily exercise
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can make it easier to fall asleep, and it can make your sleep better. Making sure to get plenty of

exercise is a great way to combat sleep deprivation.

Sticking to a sleep schedule can also be quite helpful. You do not want to sleep at

different times and different amounts of time every day. This messes up your bodies internal

clock and can make it very difficult to get into a healthy routine. Try to go to bed at the same

time every night, and wake up at the same time every morning. Preferably, you want to get to

bed early, sleep the amount you need, and get up around the same time every day. If you get to

bed early, you can still get up early and get what you need to get accomplished done in the

morning, or make it to school and work on time, while still getting enough sleep.

Another tip to falling asleep is if you are struggling to fall to sleep, get out of bed and try

doing something relaxing for a while. Then try going to sleep once you are feeling relaxed. This

helps to wind down and relax your brain when it is over stimulated, and can make it much easier

to go to sleep. It is also important to stay away from screen time near your bed time. Screen time

stimulates your brain and can make it much more difficult to go to sleep.

Make sure to only use your bed for sleep. Do not lounge around in your bed studying,

reading, watching television, texting, or whatever you may be doing. This will make it more

difficult for you to fall asleep in your bed when you need to. You also want to limit your naps as

much as possible. If you do take a nap, do it earlier in the day, and do your best to keep it under

an hour.

A good routine to get into leading up to bed time is putting the electronics away, about 30

minutes before you plan on going to sleep. Do something relaxing such as drawing or reading.

Eat something light so you do not go to bed hungry, but avoid eating meals before bedtime.
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Adjust the lights so your body knows it is time to sleep. Then lay down in your bed and try to fall

to sleep. These are good habits to get into, especially if you struggle to fall asleep at a decent

hour.

Healthy sleep habits are proven to be crucial in order for a person to be at there best.

There is a reason professional athletes get plenty of sleep. There is a reason billionaires go to bed

early, and stick to a routine. These are habits for success. Productivity, energy levels, and sleep

go hand in hand. People as a whole, and especially in the United States, are not getting enough

sleep these days. This is likely hurting productivity now, but more importantly it is effecting our

future.

Students being sleep deprived at school more and more frequently is causing them to

learn and comprehend school. They are getting less out of school, as compared to those who get

enough sleep, even though the same amount of time is put in. This effects the students grades

now, but more importantly, those students who are sleep deprived are less educated. This can

hurt them individually in life after schooling years. Big picture though, is even more worrisome.

It can slow down our advancement as a people if this is happening in large numbers. It is

reported that lack of sleep costs the United States 411 billion dollars annually. That is an absurd

amount of money, and more than likely that number will slowly continue to rise unless people

are educated. Sleep deprivation is becoming an epidemic.

If more people were educated about just how damaging sleep deprivation can be, the vast

majority of people would attempt to improve there sleeping habits. In order to educate more

people, a solution could be to teach more about the dangers of sleep deprivation, as well as the

benefits of a good nights sleep, in high school health classes. Since almost everyone takes a high

school health class, this would be a simple way to spread the knowledge on a large scale.
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Unfortunately, most individuals do not know enough about it. It is reported that the

average amount of sleep a teen gets is 6.5 hours per night. That is not nearly enough. Eight to ten

hours per night is the recommended amount for teenagers. This is not only harmful to growth

and development during the teen years, it also sets bad habits for there adult years. Many teens

do not even know what it feels like to be fully alive because of proper sleep.

In conclusion, Sleep deprivation has become an epidemic. It is clear that more knowledge

needs to be spread on the topic. Sleep deprivation can negatively impact all aspects of its victim's

life. That includes emotionally, physically, and mentally.

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Works Cited

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Mateo, Ashley, et al. “How Sleep Affects Fitness and Vice Versa: Everyday Health.”
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“Physical Health and Sleep: How Are They Connected?” Sleep Foundation, 11 Dec. 2020,
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