Don't Wake Me Up

It's official! Sleep is crucial to our existence, and yet we are being deprived of it! Why, you may ask? Well, the answer is quite simple.  Work and school is so demanding that we stay up all night trying to finish everything we have to do before the next day.  Most people do not realize how important sleep really is. They don't realize that we spend around "1/3 of our lives" sleeping (paragraph 1).  Why would we spend so much time "completely out of it" if it didn't really matter (paragraph 1)? The reality is that sleeping does a lot more than we think it does.  When we sleep, our brain forms and consolidates "memories and it plays a central role in the formation of new neuronal connections and the pruning of old ones" (paragraph 2).  All of this is said by doctors in a fascinating article I read on sleep deprivation.

Dr. Nedergaard explains is that the brain clears out all of the "junk that has accumulated as a result of your daily thinking" (paragraph 3).  Another thing written in the article is that sleep may cause diseases or be a result of a disease.  "80 percent of working adults suffer from sleep deprivation" (paragraph 13).  This is probably because they are constantly pulling off all nighters to impress their co-workers or boss.

I have seen this first hand with my dad and oldest sister, Tatiana.  My dad is constantly up in the early morning doing business calls.  He usually falls asleep around 8 p.m. and wakes up at 4 a.m.. This caused insomnia.  Recently he had to sleep at the hospital so doctors could monitor his sleeping schedule. My sister, on the other hand, is constantly pulling all nighters now that she is a senior in college and having important internships.  It's easy to tell when she has been working because she isn't very focused on our family discussions.

It is clear that sleep deprivation causes us to completely lose it.  We lose focus and usually become cranky or, in some cases, delirious.  I have experienced this first hand.  In Turkey, my sisters and I pulled an all nighter. The next morning it looked as if we were on drugs or something.  We would go from insanely hyper to cranky to exhausted.  Therefore, sleep is very important.  It's important for medical reasons and for life.  Without sleep, we cannot properly function.  I guess there are only two questions left.  Why does school still start so early?  Why do business people and school kids have such a heavy load of work once they have left school or the office?