Why Everyone Should Sleep

Photo by Isabella and Zsa Fischer on Unsplash

​By Leonid Nevezhin

Sleep is incredibly important to the human body, but many individuals neglect that. You must sleep in order to avoid all the problems and negative health benefits that happen and can happen as a result of not enough sleep, or sleep deprivation.

This essay is divided into three sections. The first is called “Randy Gardener”, and contains two examples of what lack of sleep causes and can cause. “What happens if you don’t.”, is the second section, and discusses the negative health effects associated with sleep, how exactly they are a result of sleep deprivation, and what these negative health effects would mean to you. The last one is called “How to fall asleep.” and contains ways that you can fall asleep faster and how you can make it easier for yourself. 

Randy Gardner.

Sleep is essential to us as humans. It gives our body energy and time to replenish. 

First, let’s talk about how long a person can go without sleep. The current record-holder is Randy Gardner, who stayed awake for 11 days, 264 hours, without sleep back in 1964. In 2017, he did an interview with WBUR-FM, a radio station run by Boston University, and told his story. 

After about 2-3 days of not sleeping, Randy began to feel nauseous. At about day 4-5 he had a hard time remembering things and answering questions. “I mean, it was crazy where you couldn’t remember things. It was almost like an early Alzheimer’s thing brought on by lack of sleep”, he stated. Gardner also said that the longer he stayed up, the more irritable and agitated he got. “I had a very short fuse on day 11. I remember snapping at reporters. They were asking me these questions over and over and over.”, Randy recalled in the interview. After staying up for exactly 11 days, as he originally planned, he dropped into bed and slept for 14 hours. 

At the time, everything was fine. He awoke after 14 hours of sleeping and felt perfectly normal, as he did for the next 50 years. Then, the feat came back to haunt him. When he was in his late 60s, Randy and Ilona’s cat, George, died. “... and I was so upset that the vets didn't catch it, that they never looked in her mouth to find this tumor, that they blamed every other thing. And then she died, and I was so wracked with guilt…”. This moment, accompanied with Gardner’s ancient stunt, triggered it. 

Randy Gardner was diagnosed with insomnia. “I could not sleep, I would lay in bed for five, six hours, sleep maybe 15 minutes and wake up again.” Gardner also became incredibly agitated and was “awful to be around”. Scientists and researchers couldn’t figure out why this happened to him but Randy called it karma. 

He wasn’t the only one who suffered serious consequences. One of the people that inspired him to do this challenge in the first place was Peter Tripp, a radio DJ who stayed awake for 7 days. 
“In the months that followed, Tripp seemed unable to recover his center of gravity. He fought with his boss and lost his job. He ended up as a salesman, drifting from town to town across America Those that knew him well were convinced that those eight days without sleep had left him permanently damaged”, was the statement of one of the psychiatrists that monitored Peter during his wake-a-thon. 

Days after Randy finished his challenge, Guinness World Records released that it would no longer accept or support records related to sleep because of the related health risks. 

What happens if you don’t.

Obviously, you won’t stay awake for 264 hours. But what happens if you have an irregular sleeping schedule and don’t get the sleep required by your body to function as it should? 

• Stress-related problems: When one does not get enough sleep, the brain’s ability to process daily tasks declines as well as their memory capacity which can increase stress if you have any difficult projects due, for example.

 

• Immune deficiency: Long-term sleep deprivation can decrease your body’s ability to fight off infections.

 

• Increased risk of accidents: As your brain’s ability to process daily tasks declines, your reaction time also declines which can lead to accidents, especially car accidents and general clumsiness. Believe it or not, sleep deprivation was a huge factor in some of the biggest disasters in recent history such as the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.

 

• Relationship problems: Long-term sleep deprivation can lead to irritation and agitation which can cause relationship problems and disconnected relationships.

 

• Memory problems: It may be difficult to learn and retain information without enough sleep as it hurts cognitive thinking. Lack of sleep impairs attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving. Also, when you sleep, certain sleep cycles play a role in “consolidating” memories in your mind. So, a lack of sleep can lead to not remembering what you learned and experienced during the day.

 

• Heart problems: Sleep deprivation often puts people at risk for heart problems such as… \

- Heart disease - leading cause of death for men and women in the U.S.
- Heart attacks - which occur to over 1 million Americans each year, and even if you survive it (82% chance), it can still lead to tissue death that results in lasting damage to the heart muscle.
- Heart failure - which about 6.5 million Americans suffer from, was the cause of 1 out of every 8 deaths in 2017, and leads to an estimated national loss of $30.7 billion.
- Irregular heartbeat (heart palpitations) - makes your feel as if your heart is beating too hard, too fast, skipping a beat, or fluttering. They can be bothersome or frightening and can sometimes be a sign of a more serious heart condition.

• High blood pressure: Increases risk of heart disease and stroke. Tens of millions of adults have this and most do not have it under control.

 

• Stroke: 5th leading cause of death in the United States and is a major cause of serious disabilities in adults. About 795,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each year. 

 

• Diabetes: Occur when pancreas produce very or little insulin, or when the body develops a tolerance for it. There is no cure.

 

• Kills sex drive: Most largely because of depleted energy, sleepiness, and increased tension. 

 

• Causes depression: Lack of sleep can contribute to symptoms of depression. In a 2005 poll, people who were diagnosed with depression or anxiety were more likely to sleep less than six hours per night. Insomnia and depression fuel each other, sleep loss aggravates symptoms of depression and depression makes it more difficult to fall asleep. Treating one problem will help with the other.

 

• Ages your skin: Most people experience sallow skin and puffy eyes after a few nights of missed sleep. It can also lead to lackluster skin, fine lines, and dark circles under the eyes. When you do not sleep adequately, the body releases a stress hormone called cortisol, in excess amounts this hormone can break down collagen, the protein that allows for skin to be smooth and elastic. 

 

• Stimulates less growth: Sleep loss causes the body to release too little human growth hormones. When we are young, these hormones prompt growth, As we age, it helps increase muscle mass, thicken skin, and strengthen bones.

 

• Can make you gain weight: Lack of sleep increases hunger and appetite. People who sleep less than six hours a day were almost 30% more likely to be obese than those who slept seven to nine hours. Shortened sleep decreases leptin (chemical that signals satiety in the brain) and increases ghrelin (stimulates hunger).

 

• Increased risk of death: Whitehall II Study looks at the mortality of 10,000 British civil servants over two decades. The results showed that those who cut their sleep from 7 to 5 hours or fewer nearly doubled their risk of death from all causes. In particular, it doubled the risk for cardiovascular disease. 

 

• Impairs judgement, especially about sleep: Lack of sleep hurts ability to make sound judgements because we may not assess situations accurately and act on them wisely.  Sleep-deprived people are prone to poor judgement when thinking about what lack of sleep is doing for them. Less sleep has become a sort of badge of honor. If you’re doing fine on less sleep, you are probably wrong. Over time, people who get six hours of sleep instead of 7 or eight think that they have adapted but they actually continue to go downhill on tests of mental alertness and performance. 

How to sleep.
Lastly, let’s discuss how you can fall asleep and how you can make it easier for yourself.

• Develop a regular routine: Try to go to sleep and wake up at the same time all week, this will train your body so it knows when to sleep. Note: This works, but takes some time to get used to.

 

• Exercise daily: Exercise can help you release energy and stress that may be keeping you up at night. Do not exercise just before going to bed though or it may have the opposite effect of making you more alert. Note: Pretty sure that when you’re like physically tired you also fall asleep faster.

 

• Limit caffeine intake, especially before bed: Caffeine speeds up metabolic processes, which can delay the body’s ability to sleep. Note: Obviously applicable, sometimes if you drink like 10 cups of coffee in the morning, this can come back to haunt you.

 

• Write down your worries: Keeping a list next to your bed will help you. If you have a lot of things in your head, writing them down will help relieve that tense feeling. Can also prevent you from forgetting them. You can also review the list in the morning. Note: I tried this but instead of writing down things to not forget to do, I wrote down rants and things on my mind. It helped a lot.

 

• Reserve your room (bed), for sleep, if possible: The more you train yourself to keep your bed only for sleep, the quicker you will become accustomed to it. Note: Playing Minecraft on my bed has been making it harder for me to drift off to bed.

 

• Limit screen time, especially at the end of the day: Tablets, computers, TVs, and phones emit blue light which can stimulate your sense and cause you to struggle falling asleep. Note: Works, except if you’re really tired then the blue light has no effect. Maybe set up that night mode thing in your phone if you haven’t already. Not sure how much it helps but it certainly is nicer on your eyes.

 

• Drink a glass of warm milk: I added this one, I’m not sure what causes it or whatever but drinking warm milk makes you kind of relax and fall asleep. Don’t eat with cookies or something, the sugar might stimulate you to stay awake longer and then lead to a crash soon after. Don’t drink too much, either. Just a glass.

 

• Review your medications (if you take any): Ask your doctor, or mom, if you are taking any stimulants which are a common reason for keeping people up. Sometimes it is possible to switch medicines. Note: I don’t take any medications so I can’t make any comment here.

 

• Quiet, calm environment: Keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet without distractions such as a TV, computer, a lamp, if you live near a busy street or intersection, try to cover your windows with a dark sheet to prevent car lights from flickering on the walls, Note: Once upon a time, we lived near a busy street and car lights would flicker on the walls and I had trouble sleeping, then we got dark curtains that blocked out the light and it helped me sleep better.

 

• Do something relaxing: Read a book, listen to music, take a warm bath, or deep breathing can help you fall asleep. Note: Reading and listening to low-fi or certain classical music can help me fall asleep. Breathing techniques are ineffective for me, which is why they are crossed out, but I left them in case maybe you might want to try it and it would work for you.

 

• 20 minutes rule (don’t worry, it has nothing to do with that Uzi Vert song) - If you can’t fall asleep after 20 minutes of turning in, or you wake up and can’t fall asleep again, do something relaxing, such as mentioned before, until you feel sleepy again. Note: this works after turning in, but I’m too tired when I wake up in the middle of the night to do anything so I have never tried that.

 

• Go outdoors: Daylight helps set sleep patterns, so try to be outdoors while it's light out for 30 minutes a day. Note: Works but not as effectively as some of the others.

Sleep. 

I sincerely hope that after this that you understand the consequences, and will at least try to sleep more regularly and enough. Humans need an average of 8-10 hours of sleep. Less than 7 is not enough and more than 10 is too much. It is recommended that as teens, and are still growing, we receive 9 hours of sleep a night. 

Also yes, I am aware that not all of these consequences are certain, but some have a much greater chance of happening than others and some are actually certain.

In conclusion: sleep.