Melissa Danowski

Sleep, one of the most powerful necessities for human existence is being deprived

of people everywhere. Students are being subject to sleep deprivation due to homework,

extra curricular activities and early school starting times. Sleep disorders are more

prominent now than ever, and suggested sleep amounts are being replaced with caffeine

and taurine. Sleep has the power to be debilitating with lack of sleep as well as helpful

with adequate amounts of sleep. Sleep is required for many things in the body, mainly

alertness and concentration.

Sleep has the power of keeping your heart healthy and reducing inflammation.

Psychological benefits include reducing stress, increasing alertness, and reducing ones

risk for depression.(kidshealth.org) One needs sleep for learning and memory, sleep helps

the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory

consolidation. Studies from Harvard’s medical center say that students who took a nap

after learning new materials scored higher on tests than students who had not taken a nap.

Sleep also affects metabolism and weight, chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight

gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates. Sleep debt

contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the day, which increases the risk of

falling asleep behind the wheel. Sleep loss may also result in irritability, impatience, and

inability to concentrate. Sleep deprivation alters immune functions, including the activity

of the body’s “killer cells” (harvard.edu). Serious sleep disorders have been linked to

hypertension, increased stress, increased hormone levels and irregular heartbeat.

 About 40 million people in the United States suffer from chronic long-term sleep

disorders each year and an additional 20 million people experience occasional sleep

problems (healthcommunities.com). Around 95% of people who have sleep disorders

remain undiagnosed. Sleep disorders are cause by a multitude of things such as genetics,

blindness, mental illness, physical illness and aging. Insomnia is difficulty initiating or

maintaining sleep. Around 30%-50% of the general population is affected by insomnia,

and 10% have chronic insomnia. This sleep disorder affects all age groups. Among

adults, insomnia affects women more often than men. It is typically more common in

people in lower socioeconomic groups, chronic alcoholics, and mental health patients.

Stress most commonly triggers short-term or acute insomnia. If one does not address their

insomnia, however, it may develop into chronic insomnia. Another sleep disorder called

Narcolepsy which causes excessive sleepiness and frequent daytime sleep attacks. One

may have narcolepsy if they suffer from periods of extreme drowsiness every 3 to 4 hours

during the day. One may feel a strong urge to sleep, often followed by a short nap. They

may experience sleep paralysis, when one is unable to move immediately after waking

up. It may also happen when one first becomes drowsy. Cataplexy is also common,

which is a sudden loss of muscle tone while awake, resulting in the inability to move.

Strong emotions, such as laughter or anger, will often bring on cataplexy. Most attacks

last for less than 30 seconds and can be missed. Ones head will suddenly fall forward,

jaw will become slack, and their knees will buckle. Conditions that cause insomnia, such

as disrupted work schedules, can make narcolepsy worse. Sleep apnea is a common

disorder in which you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you

sleep. Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. They often occur 5 to 30
times or more an hour. Typically, normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a

loud snort or choking sound. Sleep apnea usually is a chronic condition that disrupts your

sleep 3 or more nights each week. One may often move out of deep sleep and into light

sleep when their breathing pauses or becomes shallow. This results in poor sleep quality

that makes one tired during the day. Sleep apnea is one of the leading causes of excessive

daytime sleepiness.

The Recommendation that has been made by doctors for the amount of sleep one

should get from 12-18 years of age is 10 hours. Teens on average get just 7.3 hours a

night. 15% were receiving 8.5 hours and 26% were getting less than 6.5 hours of sleep

each night. High school seniors on average are sleeping 2 hours less than they should

each night (medicalnewstoday.com) 90% of parents felt their children were getting

enough sleep while an alarming 59% of the children felt they were not getting adequate

sleep. 28% of all teenagers say they are too tired to do any type of physical exercise.

Over half of all teenagers have been driving their car while feeling sleepy. 22% of all

high school kids fall asleep while doing their homework once a week. 14% of high school

students arrive late to school at least once a week because they have problems getting up.

28% of high school students fall asleep while at school. Teens and infants need the most

sleep but teens are getting the least out of all age groups due to homework, school

starting times, and extra curricular activities. A good night's sleep is known to improve

people's ability to learn actions such as mirror writing. REM sleep, when most dreaming

occurs, is thought to be particularly important. The role of sleep in factual learning has

been less clear. Now Matthew Tucker at The City University of New York and his

colleagues have shown that even a nap with no REM sleep can help. Volunteers were told
to memorize pairs of words and to practice tracing images in a mirror. When they were

tested straight afterwards and 6 hours later, those who had been allowed a nap of up to 1

hour before the re-test scored 15 per cent better in the factual test than the non-nappers,

but no better in the action test (Neurobiology of Learning and Memory)."Traditionally,

time devoted to daytime napping has been considered counterproductive," the researchers

say. It now seems sleep is "an important mechanism for memory formation". Sleep has

the power to increase ones test scores.

Alternate methods of energy have been found through use of caffeinated products

such as coffee, sodas, teas and energy drinks. The main ingredient in coffee that gives us

that jolt is caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant. Caffeine is found naturally in

coffee beans, tea leaves, and chocolate, and is a popular added ingredient in carbonated

beverages and some over-the-counter medications such as cold remedies, diuretics,

aspirin, and weight control aids. It is estimated that in the U.S., 75% of caffeine intake

comes from coffee. Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system by blocking

adenosine, a neurotransmitter that normally causes a calming effect in the body. The

resulting neural stimulation due to this blockage causes the adrenal glands to release

adrenaline, the "fight or flight" hormone. Ones heart rate increases, pupils dilate, muscles

tighten up, and glucose is released into ones blood stream for extra energy. Caffeine also

increases dopamine. Dopamine activates the pleasure in parts of the brain. It has been

suspected that this also contributes to caffeine addiction. Physiologically, caffeine makes

one feel alert, pumps adrenaline to give energy and changes dopamine production to

make one feel good. (overcaffeinated.org) 75% of children say they consumed at least
one drink containing caffeine each day. 31% of those children said they consumed 3 or

more caffeinated beverages.

The power of sleep helps students achieve higher test scores and allow them to

remain healthy. School starting times happen to be a cause for such sleep deprivation.

Most high schools begin their day around 7:30 a.m., which leaves many teenagers

nodding off in the morning. To help sleepy teens, some school districts have delayed the

opening of the high school day. Educational researcher Kyla Wahlstrom, from the

University of Minnesota, has been following districts that have changed their start times,

tracking the effect on schools and students. The Minneapolis school district, for example,

changed its start time from 7:20 to 8:40 a.m., an extra hour and twenty minutes each

morning. Wahlstrom says the students have benefited from the change. "Students

reported less depression when there was a later starting time," she says. "And teachers

reported that students were more alert and ready for learning. Parents reported that their

children were easier to live with because their emotions were more regulated."

Wahlstrom also found a decrease in the number of students who were dropping out of

school. According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than 80 school districts around

the country have now made the change to start their high schools later. For many school

districts, a major obstacle in changing their start times is the cost and scheduling of buses.

Some districts, however, have juggled their bus schedules without any additional

expense. (npr.org)

Schools should start later to increase test scores, and decrease dependence on

caffeine and depression. Sleep, the most vital of all processes we go through is being
deprived of people everywhere, and if schools could start an hour later everyone would

benefit from the change.