Week #12- Kirti Kande- The Power of Sleep
Sleep. As high school students we all have heard the sentence: Sleep is very important for you; yet, many of us ignore this and continue to pull all-nighters, staying up until 3 in the morning, going to sleep, and waking up at 7am.
What does sleep actually provide us, other than giving our bodies a break?
What if you do not get the recommended amount of sleep?
Restricting and limiting your sleep daily causes stress on your body because now your brain is working double-time to repair the events of multiple days in a row. With the brain unable to “clean” the toxins in your body and your head of all the information it has processed throughout the day all the “molecular garbage starts to affect nearby healthy cells, interfering with their ability to form and recall memories or plan even the simplest tasks” (Park). Especially for teenagers, these are crucial years for our brains to grow and develop for our adult years. When we become adults, our brains will stop growing and the growth our brains were able to accomplish while we were teenagers is what we will have.
So next time, you are in your bed, head, maybe do not pick your phone, which will keep you awake, rather read a book, which will help put you to sleep.
Hey Kirti! It is certainly interesting to think that at a time when we assume our brain is taking rest it is actually simply doing more work. Another interesting concept is that it is also cleaning itself up kind of like some kind of self cleaning roomba or something. It is also terrifying as a high school student with a horrible, if at all existent sleep schedule, that my brain is actually building up toxins over time due to my horrible sleep schedule. Let’s just hope that the coming week I will actually sleep properly (clue: it is not happening).
ReplyDeleteHey Kirti! Given that my sleep schedule is basically non-existent, I can definitely say that I have experienced lots of uncomfortable and irritable side effects after pulling all-nighters. My body always feels fatigued, which is a given, but it usually takes me about a week to feel totally normal again. My skin also gets a lot worse. Whenever I pull all-nighters or end up just getting only 2 hours of sleep, my acne flares and my skin dries up (might be a bit TMI… sorry). But the possibility that I’m hindering my brain growth seems to be really scary because that implies that there will be lots of long term implications if I do not take care of myself properly right now. This was a really insightful blog post and hopefully I’ll end up finally prioritizing sleep. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Kirti! I never realized that our brains clean out our toxins when we we are asleep. Things have been pretty stressful with schoolwork and the SAT coming up, so I've fallen into a recent bad habit of consistently working and then staying up late on my phone, only to wake up tired the next day and repeat again. It's hard to reestablish a normal sleep schedule again once it's been messed up, so I'm really thankful for this reminder right now. While its hard for us to get the recommended amount of sleep, we should at least try to sleep whenever we can and at least not pull all-nighters (whenever possible) to get good rest. Our brains really do a lot when we sleep, so I'll try to keep this in mind the next time I get tempted to deliberately stay up late.
ReplyDeleteHey Kirti, I have recently began to realize the importance of sleep upon your daily performance. During football season, I realized that the extent of attention I was able to pay into my daily practices directly was based on the amount of sleep I got the previous night. Sometimes, I would stay up till like one or two watching Netflix, meaning I would get only six to seven hours of sleep every night. Paired with the daily exercise required, I was exhausted both during class and during practice. I remember vividly that while getting rest on the sidelines, I would nearly fall asleep, even when I am literally standing up minutes after exercising. Overall, this year has truly taught me how much of importance I must place on sleep, as the amount I get directly affects how efficient I can be during my day.
ReplyDeleteHi Kirti! I had no clue sleep is so important to the growth of our brains. I have also heard people tell me that sleep is important, because we would not be able to function properly and get tired if we are not able to sleep. However, I had no clue that this would impact the functions of our brain which goes to work while we are sleeping. In the future, I will definitely try to go to bed earlier since I have a bad habit of staying up late. Your blog was very informative and acquired a great deal of new knowledge from reading it. This is definitely going to motivate me to better manage my schedule and make more time for sleep. I also appreciate your advice of not looking at the phone before bed since I do that all the time and it usually takes a good chunk of time away from my sleep.
ReplyDeleteI like the image of me being asleep with a bunch of busy workers in my head sweeping and washing my brain to prepare it for the next morning when I come back out and trash the place again. I do my best to give myself wind down time outside of sleep so I don’t trash the place too much. I used to have a really bad sleep schedule and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun prioritizing my sleep and myself over a lot of other aspects of my life. It’s so important to sleep, I remember one day this year where I not only did not sleep a lot the night before but I also did a lot of work the day before, I came into school the next day feeling absolutely burnt out and it was a rewarding yet odd feeling. It was rewarding to know that I don’t do that to myself every day anymore but odd because I cannot fathom functioning at that level anymore even though I did it for years. I am glad I made that switch to caring about myself, I have a lot more left in me to deal with other things throughout the day.
ReplyDeleteHi Kirti, every time I stay up, I always regret it very much the next day. First in the morning, when all I want to do is sleep. I have to use so much willpower to force myself to get out of bed (normally way past my alarm). Second, throughout the day, I am visibly more tired, unmotivated, and moody, and I kind of just autopilot my way through my day. Third, when I am trying to do my work, I am significantly less focused and will procrastinate more, typically leading to me having to stay up to finishing my work and continuing this bad cycle. Recently, I have been trying to make active efforts to sleep on time because I have realized the negative effects it has on my body and brain, and I hope that I am able to minimize staying up.
ReplyDeleteHey Kirti, I always knew that not sleeping enough is bad for you, but I never knew it was bad to this extent in that it could limit your brain growth. I really want to try to sleep more, but due to how easy and addicting it is to be unproductive and looking at my phone all the time, it is hard for me to sleep early with all the leftover work piling up. Yesterday though, when I actually slept a little earlier than usual, I felt really rejuvenated when I got up the next morning. I am hoping to experience that more often, so I will stop staying up so late. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Kirti, I strongly relate to your blog and the fact that we high school students avoid our sleep just to finish our work from school. Although we know that sleep is important, the fact that our homework is more important for our grade which then also affects our success in life shows how we have changed our mindset that not sleeping more is better for our grade. It is so sad that our reality has become that way, being competitive about our grades rather than just living our lives happily and healthily. I hope someday we won’t have to worry about our grades affecting our success in life soon.
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