Sleep is the activity that occupies the most of our spare time more than anything. Next to food, water, and shelter, sleep is one of the most important necessities for human survival. In my culture there’s a very old saying:”Sleep is the best medicine”, which pretty much sais it all. Even though humans need sleep to function properly and in the extreme cases live, most people choose to ignore their need for sleep. Statistics show that 90 percent of teenagers tend to get three hours less sleep a night than what they need. Unfortunately, for these teens their parents believe that the lack of sleep in their children is not a major problem. Without sleep a person can have deterioration in mental capabilities, the physical health, and everyday activities. My daughter is only 8 and going to sleep is the hardest process. Most of the time she is the last one to fall asleep. It must be genetic as I’ve always have been a bad sleeper myself. Until this year when I learned the importance of sleep when I got at the emergency , they diagnosed me with fibromyalgia .I never heard before of this diagnose so I start researching myself and refuse to take any pain pills and anti-depressants. Since then I learned the extreme importance of sleep. I never got to severe pains since I auto-educate myself to sleep, and keep a physical exercise routine. Was hard to put everything aside and change priority: sleep is more important than anything when the sun goes down. Now since I am a single mother, full time student and part time working you can imagine how hard was for me to change these priorities when I always feel that a day is not enough at all for how many things I have to do. And that 3-4 hrs a night should be sufficient. Well, when you get so irritated and in the worst pain possible, sleep is like the air.
Majority of today’s students do not get a good night’s sleep. Statistics shows that only forty percent of college students’ report that they feel rested about two days a week. Only two days a week is not healthy. Some of the studies also show that lack of sleep can and will harm one’s memory. When I was at my therapist she were asked me how many hours of sleep I have e every day. Told her like 4 hrs of sleep in the week, and aprox 6 in the weekends. And this was normal to me. I was asked if I remember the questions when I had a test, and all I could response was, “I don’t know. Is it important?” My response was a little less honest, because I could’ve just say:”no, have have no idea what you are asking me”, but I refuse to say anymore because I don’t want to admit that my brain got affected. The lack of sleep showed a drop in my short term memory. A lack of sleep only starts at memory loss. Pulling an “all nighter” is not as efficient as you would think. I have been discovered that the most critical period for sleep is after 12 am. My brain simply refuses to get into sleep mode.. Studies have shown that the optimum amount of sleep a person should get each night is seven to eight hours. Many people have trouble getting this amount of sleep. Between work, family obligations, and household chores, too often a person gets only a few hours of sleep a night. There are severe side effect due to sleep deprivation .Sleep deprivation has a definite effect on learning, memory, and the ability to think clearly. If a person is not able to get a full night's sleep after learning something new, he will not remember the new knowledge well. He will not fully assimilate the new ideas or task until he is able to go through a complete night of uninterrupted sleep cycles.
Different parts of the brain are rested and regenerated during different phases of sleep. During some phases of sleep, the neurons in the cerebral cortex regenerate. If sleep is interrupted so that this regeneration cannot occur, speech may be affected, since the temporal lobe of the brain is what controls speech. People who do not get enough sleep often have slurred speech. There is