Blog #1: The Benefits of Sleep

 

"Question Sleep" by Jhonen Vasquez

Everyone needs sleep. Sleep is necessary for a human being to function properly, just like eating and drinking. "Sleep" according to the Oxford English Dictionary is "A condition of body and mind such as that which typically recurs for several hours every night..."

In Masaya Takashi's "Prioritizing Sleep for Halthy Work Schedule," during sleep,  a person recovers from fatigue. Having the right amount of sleep, and sleeping at the right time also affects the quality of sleep the person receives and thus affects how the person will perform while they're awake. Sleep deprived employees show to have lower performance levels in their workplace.

Takashi says that "Sleep-related benefits are particularly helpful for the working class…" As beneficial as it is for the working class. It is also beneficial for students as it is force the work force. And as Takashi said after listing various negative effects of sleep deprivation, "Despite the clear disadvantages as listed above, the value of sleep has been somehow neglected." Once again true also for students.

Of course, comparing sleep healthy people will show better results from sleep deprived people. It's like comparing people who are well fed from people who are hungry. But is there actually any benefit from sleep aside from avoiding sleep deprivation?

Jeffery M. Ellenbogen's "Cognitive Benefits of Sleep and Their Loss Due to Sleep Deprivation" states that there are benefits of sleep apart from avoiding sleep deprivation. He states that an experiment done by Walker et al. instructed a set of people and then have them execute said instructions 12 hours later. It showed that those who slept between the 12 hour gap performed better than the group who are not sleep deprived and stayed awake during the 12 hour gap. Again, this shows that there are actual benefits from sleep aside from sleep deprivstion.

In Ellenbogen's article he stated: "Instead of studying the negative consequences of sleep loss, these studies seek to understand the positive gains produced by sleep." This is an important step in seeking out the stand alone benefits of sleep apart from the consequences give from the lack of sleep.

Almost all people know the benefits of sleep from avoiding sleep deprivation or may not even know the stand alone benefits of sleep at all, but still choose to avoid or skip on the right amount of sleep needed for a person to stay healthy. The aim of this blog is to find out what are the causes of this lack of sleep or sleep deprivation among students.