The Importance of Sleep

In the daily lives of human beings, sleep plays a significant role in augmenting health. Not only does the loss of sleep lead to sleepiness during the day, but it is also a key risk factor for diseases like Alzheimer’s (Slats et al., 2013). Medical experts focusing on sleep point out that a healthy adult should have approximately 8 hours of sleep each day (Carskadon, 2002). Conversely, chronic sleep deprivation is presently highly common in the society. In America, statistics indicate that adults normally sleep for six nightly hours only. Moreover, only 37 percent of Americans obtain eight hours of sleep each night, with 31 percent reporting nightly sleep hours of less than six. Due to these developments, numerous potential explanations arise depicting the high sleep deprivation culture in today’s contemporary society under a 24-hour economy. The first reason is the increasing demands of work hours and the preeminence of work rotations such as night shifts. Secondly, as workplaces demands increase, the family also superimposes on work-related responsibilities, and this wears out an individual. The third reason is that people nowadays are spending more time on the watching of television and on the internet, which subsequently reduces sleep opportunities. Finally, due to modern ailments such as insomnia, some individuals fail to go to sleep, and this results in chronic sleep deprivation (Alvarez & Ayas, 2004).

Reports and studies indicate that the history of sleep research dates back to the 19th century (Pelayo & Guilleminault, 2009). In numerous occasions, researchers have continued to investigate the inherent link between the lack of sleep and two germane variables, which are task performance and individual productivity. It is a present fact that people spend on average a third of their lives asleep. This interesting fact makes sleep an involuntary and essential process, which makes individuals not to function properly if deprivation takes place. More studies indicate that the importance of sleep correlates to essential and vital human processes such as eating and drinking. Additional studies also show its significance in the thought process and the development of the mental faculties as well as physical health (Mental Health Foundation, 2011). During the process of sleep, information is normally processed within the mind. Besides the processing of information, sleep also aids in the consolidation of memories in a number of maintenance processes that aid people in their day-to-day functions. As such, these functions make sleep highly crucial among individuals globally. This makes it paramount not only to get enough sleep but also get good quality sleep.

In humans, sleep amounts and quality varies with age. Newborn babies typically tend to sleep more and result in an average of 16-18 hours per day, which significantly reduces after one year to about 13-14 hours. In the case of adolescents, due to the numerous physiological changes they go through, their sleep patterns tend to be much more than an adult. As an individual grows and reaches adulthood, sleep hours reduce to 7-8 hours per day. On the other hand, older adults who are 65 years and above tend to sleep 6-7 hours each day and tend to take more frequent naps during the day (Mental Health Foundation, 2011). Since the amount of sleep people procure daily ranges from one person to another, the average sleeping hours range between 5 and 11. Although there is a large difference in the number of sleeping hours, it remains imperative for people to gauge their sleeping structure and ensure that they get the right amount per day. Inasmuch as there are no set sleeping amounts for people, the underlying significance of sleep remains substantial on a person’s health. An example here is the fact that just as people require different sizes of shoes, they also need different sleep amounts. However, there is a general threshold to the hours of sleep needed to maintain a healthy and fully functional body and mind. As such, it remains vitally essential to find out the amount of sleep one needs and to understand that it might be intrinsically divergent from those of others.

A person’s ability to attain and maintain good sleep comes from not only their sleeping pattern but also how sleepy they feel. In addition, how sleepy an individual feels relates to their drive to sleep. Sleep patterns relate to the regularity and timing of pertinent sleep habits. This makes it imperative for people to get into well-structured patterns of sleep since established best routines and practices make it easier to sleep at a designated time each day. Converse to what people realize, sleep is a complicated pattern, and much of it is still mysterious in the eyes of many scientists. During sleep, the body goes through an assortment of sleep stages and processes. As such, quality sleep results from going through all the sleep processes and spending enough time in each stage, including the stage of deep sleep, which aids in making an individual feel better and more refreshed. On the other hand, poor sleep over a long period results in a variety of problems that are recognizable immediately. Such problems include general fatigue, the lack of or a resultant decrease in the ability to concentrate properly, irritability, and consistent memory lapses. Statistics indicate that up to one-third of the population in the United Kingdom suffers from insomnia, which is the chronic lack of sleep (Mental Health Foundation, 2011). As a result, the persistence of insomnia leads to detrimental effects on the concentration, mood and energy levels of an individual and their ability to remain functional during the day.

Numerous researchers and medical practitioners have consistently studied the relation between sleep and health (Mental Health Foundation, 2011). As a result, strong interrelations have transpired that link poor sleeping patterns to poor individual health, which makes it harder to attain proper sleep. Because of such poor patterns, common problems in the mental health of individuals transpire. Such mental issues as depression and anxiety often stem from difficulties and inabilities of maintaining proper sleeping times and patterns (Mental Health Foundation, 2011). The occurrence of this problem usually results in combinational approaches in the treatment of mental health problems in tandem with sleep difficulties. Results have consistently indicated that the use of such combinational approaches normally results in effective success in the overall treatment of such individuals. Therefore, it remains essential for individuals to comprehend sleep processes fully since it helps persons attain consistent sleep amounts. Overall, every person can heavily benefit from augmenting the quality of sleep in his or her life. For a majority of the population, altering small but germane lifestyle choices, and the adjustment of attitudes results in better sleeping patterns. Conversely, people dealing with chronic insomnia need specialized treatments from medical practitioners.

Review of Literature

To comprehend and accept the literature on pertinent sleep significance and its relation to empirical negative health outcomes, an understanding of the sleep process should be adequate. In most cases, sleep has an often negative perception in that it is continually seen as a moment where the body is inactive. Contrariwise, sleep is a complicated process in which our bodies embark on a number of indispensable activities. Fundamentally, it involves lessened awareness to the outside world; the deep relaxation of muscles; and a raised state that is anabolic in nature. These three activities help in the process of repairing and building the body’s ability to tackle a number of health problems. Predominantly, the essence of sleep is for the brain, and it allows it to regenerate itself leading to essential recoveries in cases whereby brain interference takes place, such as injuries. As mentioned earlier, during sleep, the brain consolidates memories and processes crucial information gathered during the day. This function of rejuvenating the mind is highly essential and is the key reason why people are encouraged to obtain enough sleep before the handling of stressful situations such as taking an exam or going through an interview. While sleeping, the brain not only strengthens memories but it also rearranges and organizes them, revealing in-depth emotional structures and processes, revealing more insights and creative ideas (Mental Health Foundation, 2011). As such, although sleep may sometimes be inconvenient and time-consuming, it is essential and has continually evolved to fit perfectly into the lives of people.

Numerous literature abounds of the cognitive benefits of sleep and the loss therein due to chronic lack of it (Ellenbogen, 2005). In 1921, Nobel laureate Otto Loewi discovered the fundamental chemical basis of neurotransmission, which he attributed to an intuition he obtained during his sleep. In recent years, discoveries that are of a scientific nature continue to validate sleep’s role in the augmentation of processes such a memory consolidation and the formulation of pertinent insights and intuitions. Although such studies and discoveries continue to saturate the scientific world, little to no attention is being given to them; particularly, in the deliberation of regulating typical working hours. A look at neurological literature indicates more evidence on the beneficial role of sleep in enhancing cognition (Walker et al., 2003; Wagner et al., 2004). Studies show the isolation of the benefits of sleep through comparing two variables, that is, the sleeping period versus the period of sleep deprivation. Following such studies, the paradigms that ensue are as simple as they are also insightful in nature. The study involves the testing of control participants through training them on divergent cognitive tasks in morning hours then testing them 12 hours later. These control participants are compared with another group, which takes training sessions at night, then sleeps and are trained 12 hours later.

In the study performed by Walker et al. (2003), an illustration of this paradigm ensues. The study illustrates divergent groups of participants: the ones who represent the sleep-experimental group and the wake-control group. Participants in the wake-control group typically go through a task that entails motor learning at precisely 10 AM. In the task, they learn and practice particular sets of predetermined sequences on a keyboard. Subsequently, the last few trials in the training session are used as an inherent marker of the best performances as indicated by the accuracy and speed of the test. Following the initial test, a follow-up test takes place on the same tasks 12 hours later at 10 PM. In the case of the sleep-experimental participants, they learn the same task at 10 PM, sleep overnight, and on the following day, they are again tested at 10 AM. The group that sleeps overnight shows conclusive improvements in their overall performance, from initial training to the final testing. Compared to the wake-control group, the sleep group significantly excel in their overall performance in the process. Commensurately, such empirically experimental paradigms continue to indicate the importance and benefits of sleep for several types of neural processes. These neural processes include the formation of insights, the perception of novel languages, the ability to employ specific visual discriminations, and the overall amplification of general motor skills (Ellenbogen, 2005).

Conversely, although sleep benefits the cognitive functions of individuals, no universal agreements exist for their portended benefits. However, numerous newly published studies have incorporated improvements to their methodologies. Such enhancements include the avoidance of the use of sleep deprivation and the change in the focus of Repeated Eye Movements (REM) sleep. Such enriched studies continue to provide relatable and robust evidence in the dependence of cognitive processing to the procurement of enough quality sleep. In addition to behavioral data, a biologically plausible process for the benefits of sleep to the memory exists. Such effects on the memory include neurological centers of the brain such as the hippocampal-neocortical synapses (Ellenbogen, 2005). In simpler terms, this conjectural study posits that when a person is awake, the storage of appropriate information typically takes place in the hippocampus. In the process of subsequent slow sleep states, the encoded traces of memory in the hippocampus is normally replayed; subsequently, the synapses of pertinent information between the hippocampus and the neocortex takes place repeatedly over each sleep cycle. Scientists premise that such reiterative processes enable the consolidation of traces of apposite memory. In animals this evidence exists, indicating that a similar process also occurs in human beings (Ellenbogen, 2005).

More literature points toward the direction of sleep benefits in relation to creativity. Studies by Marguilho et al. (2014), indicate that sleep is highly significant since it has a positive influence on creativity; further, confirming the conjecture that the interrelation of sleep and creativity is well founded. Other studies also indicate the positive relations between the occurrence of dreams and creativity. The confirmation of such tests and results occurred during the analysis of creative performances and iterated periods of REM sleep, which usually leads to more intricate and vivid dreams. Through such examinations, it was noted that special types of sleeping processes such as the REM promoted the formation and amalgamation of associated memories and the incorporation of trace information within the hippocampus (Marguilho, 2014). This type of sleep is also pertinent in the formulation of creative tendencies since this stage of sleep is related to low levels of cortical stimulation, which in turn augments the access of remote associations that are key to the development of creative associations (Marguilho, 2014). Similarly, sleep processes such as REM shows immense activities in the frontal lobes, which is, in turn, significant for divergent thinking, a strong component in the creative process of individuals. As such, due to its inherent benefits of creativity, sleep remains highly important to individuals

Discussion and Analysis

As extrapolated from the literature above, sleep remains highly relevant to individuals. Not only is sleeping time significant, but also its quality, which translates to the different sleeping stages that a person needs to go through. To recap its importance, sleep plays a central role in memory enhancement. Aside from its overall benefits, the significance of sleep is such that its deprivations lead to profound cognitive and behavioral impairments. An example here is in a randomized and prospective study, which delineates the effects of the deprivation of sleep among interns in residency training, who work within the stipulated and traditional hours. Such residents made more grave errors compared to those who worked through an intervened schedule that incorporated more sleep (Ellenbogen, 2005). A different study also indicated that medical interns who worked under traditional hours succumbed to more attention failures compared to those who had alternative schedules (Ellenbogen, 2005). The amalgamation of these studies indicated that sleep deprivation resulted in severe medical errors, chiefly caused by attention failures. Such researches accord sufficient empirical evidence of the cognitive disadvantages of the lack of sleep. Through providing these evidence, the significance of sleep materializes. Sleep remains to be highly significant for the proper functioning of the body. Moreover, studies that have been published recently, which investigate sleep benefits, continually take a divergent but complementary approach. Such studies continually seek the understanding of sleep benefits rather than the detriments of its loss.

Moreover, in relation to the health of individuals, researchers in the medical field continually link sleep deprivation to a number of chronic diseases such as Type II diabetes and coronary heart diseases (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013). More explicitly, the use of sleep quantity in recent research correlates with the onset of atherosclerosis and the increase in blood sugar levels (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013). More epidemiological studies indicate and demonstrate an inherent correlation between an individual’s body mass index and their sleep duration. In such studies, the underlying premise is that sleep deprivation affects the hypothalamus, which is a part of the brain that aids in the regulation of appetite and pangs of hunger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013). Moreover, deprivation of sleep relates to other social problems such as the increase in motor vehicle accidents, which relates to the impairment of judgment and reaction times; the increased risk of psychiatric conditions such as substance abuse and depression; and the decreased ability to process new information (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013).

Furthermore, people presently debate on the “biological clock” of sleep and its association with bodily sleep desires and patterns. While such questions elicit different reactions, the truth is that the body has a “sleeping clock.” It is a well-founded fact that the “master clock” of the body rests among 20,000 nerve cells called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or in simpler terms, the SCN. Located in the hypothalamus, the SCN controls various systems such as the circadian rhythms (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013). Through the production of melatonin, a hormone that induces sleep, this group of cells regulate sleeping patterns. Located just above the optic nerves the SCN system regulates sleep through receiving information concerning the degrees of light. As such, while the day ends and night approaches, SCN tells the brain to make more melatonin; consequently, making a person sleepier (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013). However, while the release of melatonin is just one component of a complex system that initiates sleep in individuals, it plays a crucial role in regulating sleeping patterns.

It is highly evident that sleep plays a crucial role in the functionality and health of human beings. Numerous studies link the essentiality of sleep to the survival of animals. For example, when lab rats are deprived of sleep for 2-3 weeks, they eventually die. Similarly, human subjects placed in a state of severe sleep deprivation eventually develop extreme paranoia accompanied by hallucinations. Although scientists do not fully comprehend the functionality of sleep in individuals, empirical studies and leading surmises tell otherwise. Such hypotheses, as indicated earlier delineate hypotheses such as the conservation of energy, memory consolidation, brain development and even the protection from predators. In energy conservation, theories suggest that the metabolic rate while one sleeps is lowered. As such, the total time a person takes sleeping is directly proportional to the amount of expended energy while they are awake. In the protection from predators, historically, humans, as well as animal inactivities during sleep, greatly reduce exposure risks.

Overall, sleep remains essential in the lives of individuals. Most sleep recommendations tend to advocate for 7-8 hours of sleep to induce enough rest and energies required throughout the day. However, research from the University of California, San Francisco discovered that in rare cases; few people have a mutated gene known as the DEC2 gene, which makes them have the ability to sleep for only six hours and still function optimally (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013). Nonetheless, most people require enough sleep; commensurately, this need underscores its importance.

References

Alvarez, G., & Ayas, N. (2004). The Impact of Daily Sleep Duration on Health: A Review of the Literature.  Progress in Cardiovascular Nursing ,  19 (2), 56-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0889-7204.2004.02422.x

Carskadon, M. (2002).  A dolescent sleep patterns: Biological, social,and psychological influences . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ellenbogen, J. (2005). Cognitive benefits of sleep and their loss due to sleep deprivation.  Neurology ,  64 (7), E25-E27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000164850.68115.81

Pelayo, R., & Guilleminault, C. (2009). History of sleep research. In R.Stickgold, and M. Walker (Eds.).  The Neuroscience of Sleep , 3.

Marguilho, R., Jesus, S., Viseu, J., Rus, C., & Brandolim, N. (2014). Sleep and creativity: A quantitative review. In M. Milcu, H. Krall, & P. Dan (Eds.).  Prospecting Interdisciplinary In Health, Education and Social Sciences , 117-126.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2013).  Sleep . Cambridge, MA: MIT Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation.

Mental Health Foundation. (2011).  Sleep Matters: The impact of sleep on health and well-being: Mental Health . London, United Kingdom.

Slats, D., Claassen, J., Verbeek, M., & Overeem, S. (2013). Reciprocal interactions between sleep, circadian rhythms and Alzheimer's disease: Focus on the role of hypocretin and melatonin.  Ageing Research Reviews ,  12 (1), 188-200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2012.04.003

Walker, M., Brakefield, T., Morgan, A., Hobson, J., & Stickgold, R. (2002). Practice with sleep makes perfect: sleep-dependent motor skill learning.  Neuron ,  35 , 205–211.

Wagner, U., Gais, S., Haider, H., Verleger, R., & Born, J. (2004). Sleep inspires insight.  Nature ,  427 , 352–355.