Ethan Bell

Mr.Freeland

ENG 1102

3/27/2022

Sleep Deprivation

Have you ever had a bad night’s rest? Waking up constantly never entering

a deep state of sleep? Sleep deprivation is a serious problem many have come

upon throughout their lives. Affecting more than 35.2% of all people in the U.S, who

sleep less than seven hours per night on average. 42.7% of single parents sleep less

than seven hours per night as well as 32.7% of adults in dual-parent homes and 31% of

adults with no children. 32.6% of working adults reported sleeping less than six hours

per night in 2017-2018 (Suni,2022). Sleep loss and sleep deprivation make you truly

wonder about the impact that sleep loss has on a person, especially if compounded

from day to day.

FIGURE. Prevalence

of short sleep duration*

among persons aged 4

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months–17 years, by state — National Survey of Person’s Health, United States, 2016–

2018.

You may be saying that sleep deprivation doesn't affect many people throughout the

country so why should we devote so much time to understanding the effects it has.

Well, the figure above shows why we should really devote some time to understanding

the effects of sleep deprivation. The Figure above shows the percentage of people

affected by sleep deprivation around the country. From an altered state of mind to

physical

effects and changing how your body functions, sleep deprivation can cause serious

damage to a person. This makes you wonder, does sleep deprivation affect the

mind and body, as the duration of deprivation grows how does it continually affect

the person? This paper will be about how sleep deprivation is able to affect the

mind and body and what it does to them as the duration of the lack of sleep grows

bigger. This in-depth look will provide the history behind sleep deprivation, examples,

and evidence of the effects of sleep deprivation including experiments, statistics,

and facts about how sleep deprivation alters your state of mind and your physical well-

being. This paper will be able to help people understand the strength and importance of

a good night's rest.

Originally sleep was thought to be brought on by the lack of blood flow through

the body. Also, sleep had been seen as an arrest of consciousness by the heart in order

to detoxify the body. It was in 162 AD that Galen identified the brain, not the heart, as

the regulator of consciousness throughout the body. Over the next 1600

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years, however, small increments of progress were made in understanding

the nature of sleep. In the 1900s, neurons were discovered to be the driving power

of the nervous system. The year 1903 marked the formation of the first

sleeping pill, barbital. In 30 years, it had become one of the most abused drugs

in the United States. (Thomas, 2021). “In September 1953, as a result of

work in his laboratory, Kleitman and one of his students, the late Eugene Aserinsky,

reported the discovery of rapid eye movements (REMs) during sleep and suggested

the association of these eye movements with dreaming. This discovery is often

described as the beginning of modern sleep research, for it demonstrated that there

were at least two major kinds of sleep and that sleep included active brain processes.”

(Chicago Medicin,1999). With Dr. Kleitman’s research, we are able to understand the

beginnings of the research on sleep deprivation and sleep disorders alike. The original

disorder that was noticed was REM. REM started the foundation of basic research

about these disorders and how they connect with sleep deprivation, voluntary or

involuntary lack of sleep.

Throughout my sources, many key points and or topics have arisen surrounding

sleep deprivation. One, in particular, is memory and learning ability. Throughout the

it seems the best time for learning and memorization is right around halfway through

your day. While knowing that, when the lack of sleep starts to take over and

you become groggy, your memorization skills and learning ability actually begin to

increase. Your brain is trying to compensate for the lack of motor abilities in turn hyper-

focusing on the subject itself. Of course, there is always a limit to the human

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body and after a certain point, it drops off and becomes ineffective, and the mind

begins to shut down. In an experiment hosted by national geographic a test was

conducted on a group of three individuals who have gone 19 hours without sleep

and had scientifically started to show the signs of sleep deprivation, such as the

slowing of physical response such as reaction time, also they have started to show

a lack of time awareness, each one of the test subjects has shown that they think

time is beginning to pass a lot quicker than it actually has. The main test that was

issued that I would like to look deeper into is a memory test conducted about 19

hours into the experiment and 20 minutes into the video. As stated earlier, the

brains of these three individuals will start to compensate for the slowing of motor

and physical skills to their minds have become hyper-aware for a period of time.

So with the minds

of each individual being increasingly attentive, the memory test was administered

to them. The test involved the proctor showing each person 10 flashcards that had

different words on them and after all, the words were shown they would have to recite

each word they saw. All three individuals had remembered more words than when the

experiment first started. Individual 1 went from 5 words to 9, Individual 2 went from 5

to 7, and Individual 3 went from 4 to 9 words remembered (National Geographic, 2015).

What this shows is that each person’s brain had been into an enhanced state to make

up for the lack of physical awareness.

Sleep deprivation is also known for increasing the effects of Depression and

Anxiety. Sleep is a way for the brain to heal, detoxify itself, and overall cleanse the

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body. Once a day's work for the brain has come to an end it has been engraved in your

life that it will get some sort of rest before it goes to work again. If it does not get its

rest

its flaws and abnormalities come into the light more. Increasing the effects of

depression, anxiety, and a multitude of other issues that are a part of the brain. “A few

years ago, University of Sydney researchers surveyed about 3,000 adolescents and

young adults and discovered that for each hour of neglected sleep, levels of

psychological distress rose by about 5% the next day. In some people who suffer from

anxiety, the researchers believe sleep deprivation may have triggered the development

of serious psychological disorders like depression and bipolar disorder. The National

Sleep Foundation reports that the link between depression and sleep deprivation is

complex, and one can cause the other. One thing is for sure: It’s not pleasant to go

without rest for long periods of time. So much so that it can be used

as a form of torture, and was inflicted on U.S. detainees in the war on terror until

2009.”(McKay,2014). Using this experiment and its findings we can see that the lack of

sleep and the change in the health of the mind is a dangerous thing. The amplification

of anxiety and depression can lead a person to do harmful things to themself or others.

Getting the right amount of sleep is an important thing to be the best person that you

can be to avoid your mental health declining if the symptoms of depression or anxiety

are already showing.

Another effect of sleep deprivation is the lack of sleep’s ability to take

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a toll on your physical health as well. What I am referring to is the state of your immune

system and its ability to combat infections and diseases as well as the altering of body

functions. These effects have been observed in many medical studies and have been

known to be very harsh on the body. The main functions of the immune system are

critical to the body and if they are impaired there is no telling what affects the body will

take on. Sleep is very important no matter what happens or is occurring in the body

especially when it comes to the immune system and how it functions. Also, the lack of

sleep can start to affect your body and its physical awareness. In the figure below, how

Sleep deprivation is able to affect your immune system. Sleep deprivation can cause

damage to your brain's cells because sleep, as stated previously, is a way for the mind

and body to reset. This basically heals the mind and the brain resets for the next day.

With the lack of this rest, the brain cells can start to deteriorate. If certain specific cells

deteriorate and die off, the brain's function of “In the CNS, cytokines mediate a

multiplicity of immunologic and nonimmunologic biological functions64, such as synaptic

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scaling, synapse formation, and elimination”(Garbarino,2021). What was stated above

is that the brain’s overall response to something negative or frightening may be altered

and can change the way the person responds to something that is of that nature. Sleep

deprivation can also affect the brain cells that are in charge of developing the synapse,

stated just above, and this, in turn, can affect a younger person who is still developing

these cells. Now speaking on the physical element of what sleep deprivation is

affecting is your motor functions. Going back to the National Geographic experiment,

three individuals who were put into a state of sleep deprivation and given tests at the

beginning, middle, and end of the experiment. Another test that was conducted along

with the memory experiment; tested if the person would drop an egg attached to a string

after holding it for 60 seconds. During the test, 2 of the three individuals dropped their

eggs after 32 hours of not sleeping (National Geographic, 2015). This is because their

minds dropped into a state of microsleep. This state of mind is a way for the mind to

force the body asleep if it will not fall asleep. Not even half of a second is the reason for

them dropping their egg. For this half of a second, the mind shuts down every part of

the body that would turn off for a regular time of sleep. This is especially dangerous if

the person experiencing these microsleeps is at the hands of a vehicle and or operating

or doing something that can harm other people if not handled by an attentive attendee.

One way I feel can help stop a person from experiencing sleep deprivation is

finding peaceful sounds and noises from youtube or just from nature. Getting a good

night's rest is a challenge for some people and a high percentage of these people will

have their bad night’s rest turn into sleep deprivation because they are unable to get

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enough sleep in the next following days. Ambient noise/White noise can be a great way

to combat the constant feeling of not being able to fall asleep. Many people use

Ambient noise to be able to relax their minds and slow their rapid thoughts throughout

the night eventually lulling them into a deep sleep or even just a state of sleep in

general. Another thing that can be used is ASMR. Autonomous sensory meridian

response or ASMR for short is a multitude of sounds that also help put a person to

sleep. It has the same effects as Ambient noise and White noise have on a person. The

main goal and purpose of these tactics are to get the person listening to calm their

minds and to get to sleep.

Affecting more than 35.2% of all adults in the U.S, who report sleeping on

average for less than seven hours per night. 42.6% of single parents sleep less than

seven hours per night compared to 32.7% of adults in two-parent homes and 31% of

adults with no children. 32.6% of working adults reported sleeping six or fewer hours per

night in 2017-2018 (Suni,2022). From an altered state of mind to physical effects and

changing how your body functions, sleep deprivation can cause serious damage to a

person. This makes you wonder, does sleep deprivation affect the mind and body, as

the duration of deprivation grows how does it continually affect the person? This paper

helped show how sleep deprivation is able to affect the mind and body and what it does

to them as the duration of the lack of sleep grows bigger. This in-depth look was to

provide the history behind sleep deprivation, examples, and evidence of the effects of

sleep deprivation including experiments, statistics, and facts about how sleep

deprivation alters your state of mind and your physical well-being. In turn, be able to

8
help people understand the strength and importance of a good night's rest. With the

high percentage of people unable to get enough sleep and the rising rates of sleep

deprivation. I hope this was able to show how sleep deprivation can seriously affect a

person and their mind and cause them to be unable to be aware of what their body is

doing.

Works Cited

Watson, Stephanie. “11 Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Your Body.” Healthline, Healthline

Media, 15 Dec. 2021, https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep-deprivation/effects-on-

body#Digestive-system.

Mallorie Stallings. “Benefits of Sleep on Mental and Physical Health.” Sleep.org, 11 Mar. 2021,

https://www.sleep.org/how-sleep-works/how-losing-sleep-affects-your-body-mind/.

Garbarino, Sergio, et al. “Role of Sleep Deprivation in Immune-Related Disease Risk

and Outcomes.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 18 Nov. 2021,

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-02825-4.

McKay, Tom. “10 Ways Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Body and Mind.” Business Insider

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 , Business Insider, 4 Dec. 2014, https://www.businessinsider.com/10-ways-sleep-

deprivation-affects-your-body-and-mind-2014-12.

Sleep. [Electronic Resource]. National Geographic Television & Film, 2015. EBSCOhost

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=cat01128a&AN=scc.b1748640&

site=eds-live.

Chicago Medicine. “Nathaniel Kleitman Phd 1895-1999.” Nathaniel Kleitman Ph.D.

1895-1999 - UChicago Medicine, UChicago Medicine, 15 Aug. 1999,

https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/nathaniel-kleitman-phd-1895-

1999.

Eric Suni. “Sleep Statistics - Facts and Data about Sleep 2022.” Sleep Foundation, SF,

11 Mar. 2022,

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/sleep-facts-statistics.

Thomas, Dr. Liji. “History of Sleep.” News, 12 May 2021,

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https://www.news-medical.net/health/History-of-Sleep.aspx#:~:text=Around

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