Kamalova 1

Lenara Kamalova

Dr. Cassel

English 1201

2 August 2020

The Importance of a Good Night Sleep

Sleep deprivation has caused many disastrous incidents throughout history. One is the

Exxon Valdez oil spill. During the oil spill, the captain had a lot to drink that night, and it is said

that he caused the spill. However, the real reason was that captain went to sleep, and the third

mate was steering the boat. Although the third mate was steering the boat, he was very sleep

deprived. This caused the company to spill 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William

Sound. The oil spill covered 1,300 miles of the coastline and killed thousands of animals. Before

the spill, the Prince William Sound had fantastic wildlife. However, the disaster took a major toll

on the wildlife by killing approximately 250,000 sea birds, 3,000 otters, 3,000 seals, 250 bald

eagles, and 22 killer whales (History.com Editors) (Holden). Sleep is an essential part of

everyday life. However, most people often still struggle to get in the right amount of sleep in.

Sleep is often neglected in everyday life. However, it is very important for your health. Sleep

helps improve memory and learning abilities. Getting enough sleep also helps your body rest and

prevents obesity, cardiovascular disease, and more health problems.

Most Americans are not getting enough sleep. On average, adults need about eight hours

of sleep. However, 50% of them are getting less than that, and 25% are getting less than seven

hours of sleep (Holden). The lack of sleep is due to work schedules. Insufficient sleep can cause
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obesity, cardiovascular diseases, mood swings, etc. About 50 million to 70 million Americans

already have some sort of sleeping disorder (Underwood).

One night of sleep contains multiple 90-minute cycles with phases. In stage 1 and 2 a

person transitions from being awake to non-rapid eye movement. NREM sleep is a night of light

sleep. This is then followed by stage 3, a deep sleep (also known as slow-wave sleep). Before the

cycle finishes, the person returns to a night of light sleep, followed by rapid eye movement sleep.

A person's circadian rhythm influences when these phases occur. For example, A person can

experience a slow-wave sleep earlier in the night and more REM sleep later in the cycle. Not

only does the circadian rhythm influence sleep but so does certain physiological properties,

neurological processes, and the intensity of dreaming. NREM sleep is slower and more

synchronized in brain activity. However, REM sleep is like when a person is awake because

during REM sleep there is a high amplitude of brain activity. During stage one and two, it

involves transitions from wakefulness. Stage two includes short bursts of brain activity. This

then signals stage three. During this stage, the person is in a deep sleep and there is low brain

activity (Worley).
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(Morr

ow & Duff).

One reason sleep is important for your health is because it helps with memory and

learning (Morrow & Duff) (Worley). Memory is important because it supports the use of

knowledge and skills required in order to be successful at school, work, and in the community.

Memory can be divided into short-term and long-term. Short-term memory is the ability to retain

information that was given just seconds ago. Long-term memory is the ability to retain

information that was from a while ago. A good night’s sleep helps with long-term memory.

Long-term memory is broken down into declarative and nondeclarative memory. Declarative

memory is when you learn new information like vocabulary and facts. Nondeclarative memory is

when you learn new skills and habits. Most research indicates that sleep supports all kinds of

memory (Morrow & Duff). Dr. Dinges has found out that people who suffer from insufficient

sleep or any type of sleeping disorder, usually do not understand the toll it has on their cognitive

functions. This includes their performance, working memory, cognitive speed, and accuracy

(Worley). Sleep has an overwhelming effect on one’s memory, and that is why it is important to

get enough sleep throughout the night.

Dr. Dinges says,

“Research has shown us that sleep is not an optional activity. There is no

question that sleep is fundamentally conserved across species and across

lifespans, and that any effort to eliminate it has been unsuccessful. We must plan

our lives in the time domain with a serious consideration for sleep—planning

when to sleep, ensuring that we get adequate sleep, and making sure that our sleep

is not disturbed by disorders or diseases, whether or not they are sleep-related"

(Worley).

Getting enough sleep helps restore damaged tissues and flush toxins from the brain.

Inadequate can lead to long-term health problems like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular

diseases, hypertension, impaired immune functioning, arrhythmias, mood disorders,

dementia, and loneliness (Underwood)(Worley). When someone gets insufficient sleep, it

triggers the release of proteins that cause inflammation in the blood and body. This

causes dysregulation in the immune system. This makes the body less sensitive to insulin,

which raises blood (Underwood).

(Underwo

od).

Infants need an average of more than twelve hours of sleep. Once an adolescent, they

need eight or nine hours of sleep. Adults need about seven to eight hours of sleep (Underwood).

When someone sleeps for under seven hours many different disorders begin to increase within

the person (Worley). “To our surprise, those who were sleep-deprived responded to low stressors

in much the same way that people without any sleep deprivation tended to respond to high

stressors” This tends to make a person more sensitive emotionally and socially because of the

sleep deprivation (Worley).

There are many sleeping disorders. However, the most common are sleep apnea and

insomnia. Sleep apnea is when the throat closes during sleep multiple times throughout the night.

This prevents oxygen to get into the body and carbon dioxide to get out. Insomnia is when
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someone has a chronic problem of falling asleep or maintaining their sleep. Some signs are

persistently feeling tired and sleepiness which is not related to another factor (Underwood).

People only think that if someone is overweight, they can get sleep apnea. However, that is not

true. Only 67% of the people with sleep apnea are overweight, the rest are normal. Sleep apnea

can be caused by a defect in the airway. Insomnia affects one third off adults. 10%-15% (30

million) of people experience chronic insomnia (Worley).

The Race also can play a role in sleep quality. Ethnic minorities have a much higher number

of poor sleep quality than the white population. African Americans are five times more likely to

report short sleep periods than whites. Many social and environmental factors can affect sleep

quality. For example, people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to

experience insufficient sleep (Underwood).

Insufficient sleep can be caused by numerous amounts of issues. There could be problems in

the brain/nervous system, cardiovascular system, metabolic functions, and immune system,

Furthermore, disorders like pathological sleepiness, insomnia, hypertension, MI, stroke,

depression, bipolar disorder, obesity, diabetes, alcohol, and drug abuse can cause loss of sleep.

People who are at risk for insufficient sleep are nigh shift workers, physicians, truck drivers,

parents, and teenagers (Why Sleep is Important).

Fixing insufficient sleep can be difficult, but it is possible. Sleep is divided into five

continually shifting stages that are defined brain waves that reflect either light or deep sleep.

During the morning there is an increase in REM. This is where muscles are relaxed and

dreaming happens. Hitting a snooze alarm repeatedly to wake up is not the best way to feel

rested. The value of rest is no longer there when it is cut short. This on and off again effect

waking up causes' shifts in brain-wave patterns. People who are sleep-deprived and press the
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snooze-button to shorten their REM sleep, which impairs their mental functioning. Some ways to

prevent sleep loss is medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, etc. Medication is a short-term

fix, and it does not help fix the problem throughout. Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches people

how to recognize and change patterns of thought and behavior to solve their problems. This type

of therapy has been effective in getting people to fic their sleeping habits. A 2004 study says that

cognitive-behavioral therapy is more effective and lasts longer than medication. During a study,

63 healthy people had insomnia and were given Ambien (a pill that reduces insomnia),

behavioral therapy, or a placebo. 44% of the patients in therapy fell asleep faster than the 29%

who were only taking medication. In two weeks, the patients receiving the therapy fell asleep in

half the time it took before the study and 17 percent of the patients taking the sleeping pills fell

asleep in half the time (Why Sleep is Important).

Some other techniques to help out with sleeping problems is keep a regular sleep

schedule, do not drink caffeine 4-6 hours before bed, do not smoke, avoid alcohol, heavy meals

before bed, get exercise, wake up without an alarm clock, and try to go to bed earlier (Why Sleep

is Important).

So why is sleep important for our health? Sleep is an essential part of daily life. Once the

moon comes out, people get into their beds and try to relax and sleep. Sleep improves memory

and learning abilities. Getting enough sleep helps your body rest, prevents obesity,

cardiovascular disease, and more health problems. Without sleep, the human body will shut

down. Loads of people are not getting the average amount of sleep needed to be able to function.

This leads to cognitive functions not working properly, and the person ends up forgetting what

they were supposed to do. The 90-minute cycles throughout the night are very important. Non-

rapid eye movements and rapid eye movement help the brain function and understand what is
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going around. Sleep helps long-term memory by the body processing everything. Sleep is

necessary to survive and to live a healthy life.

Works Cited

History.com Editors. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. 9 Mar. 2018,

www.histroy.com.topics.1980s/exxon-valdez-oil-spill. Accessed 12 July 2020.

Holden, Constance. “Wake-up call for sleep research.” Science, vol. 259, no. 5093, 1993, p. 305.

Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link-gale-

com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/A13362199/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=a2f34552. Accessed 10 July 2020.

Morrow, Emily L., and Melissa C. Duff. “Sleep Supports Memory and Learning: Implications

for Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology.” American Journal of Speech-

Language Pathology, vol. 29, no. 2, May 2020, pp. 577–585. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1044/2019_AJSLP-19-00125. Accessed 10 July 2020.

Underwood, Emily. In adults, and now in teens, poor sleep is linked to cardiovascular risk, 15

June 2018. https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/health-disease/2018/adults-and-

now-teens-poor-sleep-linked-cardiovascular-risk?

gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrsrfo93I6gIVCr3ACh0Q5QnyEAAYASAAEgLdu_D_BwE.

Accessed 10 July 2020.

“Why Sleep Is Important.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological

Association, 2020, https://www.apa.org/topics/sleep/why. Accessed 10 July 2020.

Worley, Susan L. “The Extraordinary Importance of Sleep: The Detrimental Effects of

Inadequate Sleep on Health and Public Safety Drive an Explosion of Sleep Research.”

P&T: A Peer-Reviewed Journal for Managed Care & Formulary Management, vol. 43,
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no. 12, Dec. 2018, pp. 758–763. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=ccm&AN=133417593&site=eds-live. Accessed 10 July 2020.